The story has been written to reflect its wider cast of characters and to stand apart from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the comics, and other popularized versions. While it takes inspiration with recently released Marvel projects such as Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, both of which were inspired by the 1991 storyline The Infinity Gauntlet. The plot of Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order is an original story written specifically for the game and disregards the stories and continuity of the first two games in the series. A sprawling skill tree is also present, which allows characters to gain permanent stat increases by acquiring and spending in-game currency. In addition to stat increases, passive buffs can be attached to characters by equipping ISO-8 crystals.
Additional characters are unlocked by story progression or optional Infinity Rift challenges, with more characters currently planned as free or paid downloadable content.Ĭharacter progression is handled in a similar manner to traditional role-playing games, with party members leveling up by defeating enemies and bosses. Special abilities can be synced with the other three members for a synergy boost, with an especially powerful attack unleashed if all four party members sync up simultaneously. Each character's controls are fundamentally identical each has a jump, light attack, heavy attack, dodge, block, and four special abilities. Certain passive buffs are acquired with particular character combinations. Players choose four characters from various Marvel families to traverse linear stages, fight enemies, and defeat bosses. Up to four players can play the game cooperatively locally either on the same screen with a single docked Nintendo Switch system or undocked with up to four systems, or online with friends or random player lobbies.
Like the previous two entries, gameplay is reminiscent of a top-down dungeon crawler with an emphasis on cooperative play. As of December 2019, Ultimate Alliance 3 has sold over 1 million copies worldwide. Upon release, the game received mixed reviews from critics, who generally found the gameplay and storyline fun but were disappointed that the game did not improve much upon its predecessors. The game follows a new team of superheroes as they come together to save the universe from Thanos and the eponymous Black Order, who have launched a campaign to find the six Infinity Stones.
It is the third installment in the Marvel: Ultimate Alliance series, following 2006's Marvel: Ultimate Alliance and 2009's Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2, and the first Marvel game published by Nintendo without Activision's involvement (due to the latter's license to publish Marvel games expiring in 20). Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order is a 2019 action role-playing video game developed by Koei Tecmo's Team Ninja and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch. Cover art of Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order