Christopher Judge, best known for his role as Kratos in God of War, will voice Black Panther. The new character will be added as part of the "War for Wakanda" DLC, which will be available in August.

EW reports that Judge was initially hesitant to take on the role, and because of the legacy of Chadwick Boseman, who played the character throughout the four Marvel Cinematic Universe films to great acclaim, when he was first offered the role, "I immediately I turned it down," he said. Boseman died in 2020, four years after being diagnosed with colon cancer. But Judge eventually agreed. 'My mother and the kids said they would disown me if I didn't do it. [To be honest, I was afraid of being compared to the great things Chadwick had accomplished. 'The only way I could really wrap my head around it was to let my act stand on its own, without even trying to match the voices. I put all of that into it.

Judge's efforts to make his performance stand on its own were assisted by Evan Narcisse, screenwriter for the 2018 Rise of the Black Panther series and scenario consultant for the Battle of Wakanda DLC. Says Narcisse, "I want to reinforce the idea that this is its own iteration of the Black Panther mythos." 'Even if you knew the comics and could quote the movie by heart, there would be surprises.'

"Chadwick's performance was someone who had more questions about how to play the role of the Black Panther and the King. This version has no such questions. He thinks he already has all the answers. I think one of the cool things about this development is that there is a tension between him and (his sister) Suri that we haven't seen before about the best way to move Wakanda forward."

The big question, of course, is whether the addition of Black Panther and the Wakanda setting will spark new interest in Marvel's The Avengers. Despite its pedigree (to be clear, it is based on a comic book, not a movie franchise), the game has not attracted a significant number of players: as the Steam chart shows, the average monthly concurrent connections in February 2021, less than six months after its launch, were barely over 400! There was a recovery in March with the release of the Hawkeye DLC (which was actually quite good), but not enough to bring the average player count above 1,000, and by June it had dropped to just 578.

Fraser opined in March that the possibility of moving to free-to-play (which has yet to happen - Marvel's Avengers remains a premium-priced game) is not enough to save Marvel's Avengers: the problem is not the price, but that the campaign It's that once it's over, the fun is over. We'll find out in August whether War for Wakanda addresses that shortcoming. A release date has not yet been announced, but Judge, Narcisse, and Hannah MacLeod, War for Wakanda's narrative lead, will reveal more about the expansion during a Twitch live stream on July 16, starting at 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET. She will reveal more.