Marvel’s Avengers guide: Should you skip the Reassemble campaign, the Avengers’ Initiative explained

When you first boot up Marvel’s Avengers, you have two gameplay choices: campaign or Avengers’ Initiative.

If you choose campaign, you’ll dive straight into the game’s 10-12 hour story. But if you choose Avengers’ Initiative, you’ll get a scary spoiler warning and get thrust into the game’s multiplayer mode.

Here’s how that post-campaign system works, what the Avengers’ Initiative even is, and if you even should skip the campaign.

How to skip the “Reassemble” campaign?

Image: Crystal Dynamics/Square Enix via Polygon

If you’re into Marvel’s Avengers for the game’s sweet, Destiny-like, loot-grinding multiplayer, you may not want to sit through the game’s campaign. Don’t worry, you can skip the campaign now, and come back to it later (and we think you might want to, for a couple of reasons).

If you’re looking to boot up and play with friends within 10 minutes, you don’t need to do much. Select the Avengers’ Initiative and agree to the spoiler warning. You’ll get a brief cutscene here that will spoil quite a few things — although it doesn’t recap the story or anything like that.

When you’re out of the cutscene, you’ll gain control of Iron Man, and the game will send you to do a quick tutorial (a tutorial you normally play in the campaign, and that you’ll have to play again if you ever do Reassemble). You’ll also get the game’s usual gear tutorials and general instructions.

When you’re done, you’ll have full reign of the War Table (the game’s mission select) and the full roster of heroes.

Getting unleashed into the Avengers’ Initiative is daunting if you’ve finished the campaign already, so going in cold turkey is even more alarming. But if you’re just looking for any kind of direction, open your objective screen and start working on the Reigning Supreme mission — it will point you to a bunch of different Avengers’ Initiatives activities.

Should you just skip the campaign? Are there any rewards?

Image: Crystal Dynamics/Square Enix via Polygon

Whether you should skip the Reassemble campaign is a different question entirely. If you like superhero stories or movies, you’ll probably dig the campaign. But there are also gear reasons to jump in.

During the Reassemble campaign, you’ll get a more hand-holdy idea of what it’s like to play Marvel’s Avengers, and you’ll go on a tour through each hero — making the selection process much easier. You’ll also gain some loot and XP for all six launch heroes, which is a nice way to start out your multiplayer experience.

But there are also some Reassemble exclusive rewards. First, you’ll gain numerous different skins — multiples for each of the six heroes — that you can only get via the campaign. Second, and most importantly, there are two Major Artifacts linked to the campaign.

Major Artifacts have special perks, they contribute to your Gear Score, they’re available on all your characters, and they offer activatable effects mid-combat. They’re very powerful, and you can only get the Sacred Norn Stone of Lethal Will and Tactigon from the campaign. These aren’t the only two Major Artifacts in the game, but they’re the least time consuming to pick up.

While we haven’t seen the extent of Avengers’ post-game yet, you’ll likely want these if you’re going for the toughest content in the game.

Image: Crystal Dynamics/Square Enix via Polygon

Luckily, you can jump between Avengers’ Initiative and campaign pretty seamlessly. When you access the War Table, hit the Operations button (upper left-hand corner, under Avengers’ Initiative). In the Operation screen, move from Avengers’ Initiative to Reassemble campaign. When the new table loads in, you should find a campaign mission in one of the areas. You can also just jump back to the main menu and select the campaign.

The best part of doing the campaign this way is you’ll take the gear and level you have from Avengers’ Initiative into the campaign — and vice versa. You can even work on some hero-specific quests inside the campaign.

What is the Avengers’ Initiative?

Image: Crystal Dynamics/Square Enix via Polygon

Like we said before, the Avengers’ Initiative is the game’s multiplayer mode. Here, you can level and gear up your favorite superheroes — unlocking all their skills and testing them against the game’s toughest content. You can also play co-op missions with friends.

The missions here, called War Zones, aren’t the same, curated, linear missions from the campaign. These have more in common with Destiny’s Strikes or World of Warcraft’s dungeons. Some of these missions even have storylines, while others mostly focus on combat. And then there are missions — like the game’s raid equivalent — that aren’t in the game yet.

This is also where Crystal Dynamics will continue to add new content to Marvel’s Avengers. The studio already plans to add Kate Bishop and Clint Barton (two different Hawkeyes) within the first few months.

Aside from the game’s campaign, the Avengers’ Initiative is Marvel’s Avengers. It’s the reason for the gear and the XP. It’s how you and your friends will keep up with your heroes once the story is over.