In December, Marvel's Avengers finally received its first post-launch hero in the form of Kate Bishop, the protégé of original Hawkeye Clint Barton. Her story, Operation: Taking AIM, centered around a conspiracy involving Nick Fury and time travel, which leads into the story of the next post-launch hero, Clint Barton. Today, developer Crystal Dynamics provided its first in-depth look into the arrowed Avenger, as well as a March release date for Hawkeye.

Hawkeye's story is called Operation: Future Imperfect and takes place in the not-too-distant possible future where all hope is lost and the world has been devastated. The Kree have come to Earth and laid waste to the planet.

According to the War Table presentation below, the Operation: Future Imperfect story is heavily inspired by the Old Man Hawkeye Marvel Comics run. That story centers around the world's supervillains organizing to wipe out all superheroes. In Marvel's Avengers' loose adaptation of this storyline, old man Hawkeye retired and sat the fight out, so he wasn't a part of the fight when the Kree attacked. Meanwhile, modern-day Hawkeye is involved in a storyline inspired by the Hawkeye comics My Life as a Weapon. 

In the apocalyptic future, a nuclear war has destroyed the planet and Hulk is driven insane by the tragic events as the additional radiation causes him to further transform into Maestro, a version of the green monster that combines Hulk's might with Banner's intelligence. Maestro takes out all remaining heroes and villains in the world to attempt to rebuild the planet in his image. With a throne surrounded by trophies like Iron Man's helmet and Captain America's shield, it doesn't look like things went so well for Earth's Mightiest Heroes.

Once you pick up the bow as Hawkeye, you can expect an eclectic mix of abilities from Clint. While you may best know him as the expert archer in the Marvel universe, Crystal Dynamics took inspiration from Clint's time as Ronin to also give him high-level swordplay. Clint is able to sidestep attacks and parry with ease. His Deadeye ability lets him home in on a specific target to maximize damage, while his arsenal of 10 unique arrow types will let you approach fights how you want to. His Hunter's Arrow ultimate allows him to shoot an arrow (or multiple arrows when you upgrade) that flies from enemy to enemy across the battlefield. 

You can see the entire War Table presentation below.

The release of Hawkeye and his story coincides with the launch of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S versions of Marvel's Avengers. You can read more about that news here, or get up to speed with the game by checking out the full list of playable heroes and our review.

[Source: Marvel's Avengers on YouTube]