Marvel Contest of Champions


Marvel Contest of Champions is a 2014 fighting video game developed and published by Kabam. It was released on December 10, 2014 for iOS and Android. The fighting game is primarily set in the Marvel Universe. The game is strongly based on the events of the limited comic book series Contest of Champions. An arcade version was released in 2019, developed by Raw Thrills and exclusive to Dave & Buster's locations. The arcade cabinet claims that the game is inspired by the film Captain Marvel, but this was done for marketing purposes.

Gameplay

Players assume the role of a Summoner, tasked by The Collector to build a team of Marvel heroes and villains and pit them against one another in combat. Gameplay is similar to that of and Mortal Kombat X, where the game's fighting arena is rendered in 3D with a 2D plane for the superheroes' movements and actions. New players begin with access to two 1-star characters, and can work to access additional characters including Captain America, Thor, Doctor Doom, She-Hulk, Dormammu, Namor, Domino, Man-Thing, and Groot. Each of the 176 playable characters is upgradable, featuring their own classes, movements, traits, abilities, and special moves, although many share animations.
Gameplay features an energy system that limits the number of quest-based battles in which players can compete. Energy recharges automatically at a set rate over time or players can refill their energy manually. The energy limit is increased when players increase their level. Game items that impact play are found at the end of quests. In addition to quests, users can battle opponents in the game's "Versus" mode, pitting their champions against those of another player in one-on-one matches or three-on-three limited-time arenas. However, the opponents are A.I.-controlled so it is not an actual real-time player battle. Marvel Contest of Champions requires a persistent Internet connection for both single and multiplayer modes.
Controls are designed for touch, rather than adapting buttons or virtual joysticks. Gameplay includes light, medium, and heavy attack options, as well as block and dodge. The character can shuffle back or sprint forward, and each hero has three of their own special attacks, as well as unique abilities and a signature ability. Synergy Bonuses reward the player for combining characters who have a unique relationship. For example, putting Doctor Doom in the same team with Mr. Fantastic rewards every team member with a 6% increased attack. As characters take and deal damage, a power meter fills which indicates the potential for unique moves. When the player levels-up their characters, more-powerful special attacks are possible but can be used less frequently due to their higher power cost.
Characters can be leveled up by using ISO-8 and Gold and ranked up with Catalysts, which are all gained when fighting in Story Quests, special events, and arena. Class-specific ISO-8 provide heroes of the specified class a bonus. Completing quests provides XP and unlocks the ability to add more heroes to the player's questing team, to a maximum of five heroes. In addition to taking part in a global chat feature, players can also join alliances. Alliances allow chat amongst other members and provide the opportunity to work together in alliance quests and wars, to earn glory for rank up materials and shards to form crystals.

Other quests

To tie-in with the release of , Marvel Contest of Champions was updated in late April 2015 to include Ultron-centric events and characters. To assist in the Ultron missions, all players received 2-star Black Widow, Vision and Hulkbuster characters. The new quest, called "Ultron's Assault", was a limited-time Story Quest; it contained many quests, referred to as Event Quests, and provided new rewards through play. Old event quests, including Ultron's Assault, are now being released in a new, harder difficulty, known as variants. These variants are reimagined versions of the old quests, with new nodes.

Event quests

Event quests are quests brought into the game every month and are active for 35 days upon the time that the update is released. 5 different levels of the routine event quests are released. These levels are, from lowest to hardest difficulty; Beginner, Normal, Heroic, Master, and Uncollected. The event quest coincides with new characters being released throughout the game. Usually, two characters are released along with the event quest. The players also take place in fighting these characters for the event quest completion, as they serve as bosses, usually in the final 2 quests of the event quest.

Alliances

Alliances are the groups or parties of the game, which can include up to 30 players and be private or open. Alliances allow players to gain alliance crystals and to access alliance quests. These alliances can be created with battle chips or units. Alliances can also take part in Alliance Events, such as "Item Use", "Villain Use" or "Summoner Advancement", each granting player rewards. Members of an alliance can assist one another in quests, and alliance members are ranked in relation to each other. The alliance leader is able to choose which members become officers, who are able to remove players from their alliance. In "Alliance Wars", two alliances compete head-to-head, with a defence phase in which each alliance will place their own defenders on a map for the other alliance to fight, and an attack phase, wherein each alliance will traverse across the opposition's map.

Locations

There are a number of different locations where the battles take place. These include: the Avengers' Tower, the Astral Plane, the Sanctum Sanctorum, Asteroid M, the Asgard throne room, Asgard vault, Asgard power station, The Kyln, Hell's Kitchen, Knowhere, the Savage Land, a S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier hangar, Sokovia, Grandmaster's 'Galactorum', the Wakandan necropolis, and an Oscorp laboratory.

Titles

With the two-year anniversary of the game, Kabam introduced titles that players can select. The player starts off with the default title "Summoner" and the various other titles are unlocked by fully completing quests or meeting other in-game achievements.

Characters

Marvel Contest of Champions features many playable heroes and villains, referred to in the game as "champions". Playable fighters can come in one of six tiers, signified by 1 through 6 stars. Not all characters are available in every tier, and while most can be obtained through "basic" crystals and limited time arenas that will offer two different champions per round, others can only be obtained via specific crystals, arenas or special promotions.
Each playable character is assigned to one of six classes: Cosmic, Tech, Mutant, Skill, Science, and Mystic. In some quests, using the character of a particular class will get the player through "gates" that block other paths. There are also relationships between the classes, and each has an advantage over another. Characters with a class advantage over their opponent gain a class bonus, boosting their base attack by a certain percentage during the fight. There is also a Combined class that has an advantage over every other class, though only non-playable characters have this class. Three-star heroes, four-star heroes and above gain a higher percentage of damage compared to two-star heroes.
Some characters, such as Dark Phoenix, Collector, Grandmaster and Maestro, are non-playable, several of which were only available for a limited time in Event Quests, or serve as bosses in the main story mode. Ten original playable champions were created for the game: Guillotine, Civil Warrior, King Groot, Morningstar, Symbiote Supreme, Sorcerer Supreme, Venom the Duck, Ægon, Guillotine 2099 and Storm. In addition,there are seven playable 'trophy' champions: Goldpool, Platinumpool, Kang, Thanos, Ultron Drone, Immortal Iron Fist and Wolverine Weapon X.
creative director Cuz Parry describes the game as a "one vs. one, arcade-style fighting game with multiplayer as well as role-playing game elements with a quest/story mode where you're pitted against a wide range of heroes and villains from the Marvel Universe".

Expansion to China

On April 2015, Kabam and Longtu Games announced Marvel Contest of Champions to be published in China in late 2015. Some elements of the game were changed for the Chinese market. The version was later shut down and all players were transferred to the international version.

Comic book adaptation

In June 2015, Marvel announced to publish a comic book adaptation of the game that takes place in the main Marvel universe. The comic also introduced new heroes such as White Fox, a heroine from South Korea, and Guillotine, a French heroine with a mystical sword who was the first original character to the game. The Maestro served as the antagonist in the series.

''Realm of Champions''

A spin-off mobile game was created by Kabam and Marvel Games. Realm of Champions takes place in the same universe, and expands on the story from Contest of Champions.

Reception

Marvel Contest of Champions has received a generally positive response. Upon release in December 2014, the game was named Editors' Choice on the App Store. As of 2015, it had more than 40 million downloads. The 19.0 update has caused issues with iOS devices overheating, but it was later fixed.
The game was also nominated for "Action Game" at the 2019 Webby Awards.