Future Fight Unleashes the Carnage

Beware! A psychotic killer is on the loose, and he’s bonded with a savage symbiote.

Marvel’s mobile app Future Fight has released Patch 1.9.5, an update that delivers new characters, new uniforms, new skills, character balancing, and some tweaks to the game’s menus and Player Vs. Player modes. As usual, the team over at the developer’s forum Mobirum has released a nice summary of the update, which should definitely check out here if you wish to go over the finer details.

The update has added three new characters to the game’s ever growing roster. Thor (Jane Foster), Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan), and the Slayer Carnage. That’s right, one of Spider-Man’s most brutal and murderous villains has arrived in Future Fight, and he’s ready to rip the competition to shreds. With the arrival of these new characters, the game’s playable roster now includes both Thors (Odinson and Jane), both Ms. Marvels (Carol and Kamala), and both symbiotes (Venom and Carnage).

In addition to these new characters there are also three new uniforms, with the Ultimate version of Green Goblin (GG) being the standout of the three. Green Goblin has long been one of the strongest speed characters in the game, with very high movement speed and a pretty hefty amount of DPS (damage per second). Uniforms in Future Fight either change the character very minutely (giving the usual 10% stat boost and adding an effect that’s run of the mill such as +5% crit rate), changes the character quite a bit (adds new animations, extra hits/effects), or completely retools the character and changes them a lot (such as Doctor Octopus becoming the Superior Spider-Man).

The Green Goblin uniform definitely falls in the latter category, changing the quick, high damage, speed type GG to a tanky, not so high damage combat type GG. This makes sense in that the Ultimate version of Green Goblin was definitely more of a bulky brawler than a kiting ranged fighter. I’ll need to test more to see how viable the change is but having the ability to switch between types is always good in my book (only Vision, Kingpin, and Throot share in this honor). They certainly got his look right and the fiery particles that accompany his attacks give his animations some heat.

Carnage was one of the most requested villains in the game’s Reddit and official forums and many are pleased about his addition, but he’s also brought something with him that’s leaving people not so enthused. Carnage is the first true paywall character in the game. Paywall refers to the fact that the character can only be obtained by spending real money. Currently there is no other method of obtaining Carnage aside from purchasing a new biometric selector, an item that gives you 20 biometrics (which are used to unlock characters) per day.

Whereas other characters in the game are considered paywall characters, due to them being unfarmable (not easily obtainable through the game’s regular modes), there still exists methods to get them within the game that don’t require spending money -though it would take much longer to complete them without doing so. People view this as a sign of an impending trend from Netmarble, a company who is actually considered quite generous in terms of the usual Free-to-Play game developers. Its unfortunate that they tested this on such a popular character, as the backlash (against this and some other changes) is palpable.

Setting that aside, Carnage is pretty awesome in the game, and his attacks and animations are very… Carnage-like. Looking at the still of one of his attacks above, you can see that they captured his sinister look and strikes well. He also looks to be a very viable character, with abilities that give him I-frames (which render him temporarily invincible to damage) and a move that heals. Plus it’s fun to bounce around as a giant Carnage head-blob.

With the addition of Carnage Future Fight now has eight  Spider-Man related characters. Two Combats (Doctor Octopus, Carnage), One Blast (S.P.I.D.O.C), and Five Speeds (Spider-Man, Silk, Spider-Gwen, Miles, regular Green Goblin). The only category left is Universal, so bring on some Cosmic Spider-Man. If we focus on what the game really needs, which is more villains, then Spider-Man’s rogue’s gallery is certainly chock full of villainous options.

The latest Future Fight patch has delivered the Carnage, and with a large Civil War update on its way (or so many of the players including myself assume), there’s plenty of possibilities for new Spider-Man related content (Iron Spider please). Keep on fighting Future Fighters, and if you haven’t played the game yet, now would be a perfect time to play, as its much easier to obtain and rank up characters than ever before.

All images and stills used were obtained from Netmarble’s Official Forum and the mobile app Future Fight.