Marvel's Avengers delays Black Panther reveal out of respect for Chadwick Boseman

(Image credit: Square Enix)

Marvel's Avengers Black Panther reveal has been delayed following Chadwick Boseman's passing last week. 

In its launch War Table stream yesterday, Square Enix opened the showcase with a tribute to the Black Panther star, explaining that they had "altered what we are showing today" out of respect to his memory. You can see the full sequence that played out below. 

Avengers Assemble

(Image credit: Square Enix)

We talked to the star-studded voice cast of Marvel's Avengers about putting their own spin on these well-known characters.

The tribute suggests that Square Enix had intended to use yesterday's War Table as the platform to reveal Black Panther as a new playable hero coming to Marvel's Avengers after launch, evidenced by the iconic panther logo that closed out the commemoration. 

Instead, Kate Bishop was announced as the next character to join the roster ahead of Hawkeye later this year, with the two arriving as part of Marvel's Avengers first new major story update, which will be free to anyone who owns a copy of the base game itself. 

It's unclear when Black Panther was expected to join Earth's Mightiest Heroes, and when we can expect his amended reveal in the future, but I think we can all agree that this was the right move on Square Enix's part, and a graceful way to pay respects to the man who made King T'Challa mean so much to so many. 

The Marvel's Avengers beta was played by 6 million people for a total of more than 27 million hours. Check out our initial impressions from the beta in the video below. 

Alex Avard

I'm GamesRadar's Features Writer, which makes me responsible for gracing the internet with as many of my words as possible, including reviews, previews, interviews, and more. Lucky internet! 

Latest in Action
Death Stranding 2 Collector's Edition
Hideo Kojima reveals Death Stranding 2: On the Beach release date, and the Collector's Edition includes exactly what I predicted it would
Former Xbox boss says GTA: San Andreas and its infamously NSFW Hot Coffee minigame "signified a maturing of the industry" and put games "on par with movies and music"
Death Stranding 2 PS5 screenshot
Death Stranding 2 pre-orders are estimated to go live this month, and will reportedly include a $230 collector's edition that I pray doesn't come with another creepy baby statue
Assassin's Creed Shadows Claws of Awaji expansion Naoe and Yasuke in Awaji forest
Assassin's Creed Shadows roadmap, DLC and future content
Grand Theft Auto 3
A GTA streamer is trying to beat every single 3D entry without dying, and in 33 hours he's made it as far as San Andreas but keeps getting caught in Vice City purgatory
The Last of Us 2
Naughty Dog has done it: it's remastered the PS5 controller with a Last of Us-themed DualSense announcement 24 hours after Neil Druckmann dashed our hopes for The Last of Us 3
Latest in News
Balatro
Balatro creator started "properly playing the game myself about a week before launch" and had "a pretty emotional moment" where he realized it's "actually fun"
Death Stranding 2 Collector's Edition
Hideo Kojima reveals Death Stranding 2: On the Beach release date, and the Collector's Edition includes exactly what I predicted it would
Kingmakers
Kingmakers is a strategy game about taking on medieval armies with a gun, but its devs thought the giant mech was too much
The Witcher 3 lead says "not many games" were trying to match the RPG back in 2015, and that meant "there was a risk" to making it in the first place
The Blood of Dawnwalker
The Witcher 3 dev says his new vampire RPG Blood of Dawnwalker wants to challenge genre conventions, but only if "we're changing them to actually achieve some goal"
Daredevil recap: The Defenders
Marvel fans are discussing which of the Netflix series characters would have survived the Blip