After a surprising reveal at this year's E3, Eidos Montreal has certainly not been too coy about releasing further scenes from its upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy game. Characters, gameplay and plenty of witty dialogue has been the order of the day for all of the teasers released since June, and the latest of these video snippets introduces a brand new villain, along with the no-doubt nefarious organization he leads.
Grand Unifier Raker features heavily in this latest video, and the game's official Twitter account describes him as "leader of the Universal Church of Truth." Their aim, according to Guardians of the Galaxy social media, is to "bring their so-called 'Promise' to the whole galaxy." What that means exactly is, for now, shrouded in mystery, but Raker makes reference to a "Matriarch" in the trailer, shortly before the Guardians are picked up by a giant and questionably ergonomic ship.
It's unknown at this point how much of a threat Raker will prove to be in the final game. In the comics, he was a thorn in the side of the Guardians while wielding the Belief Battery, an artifact allowing him to manifest anything in which he believed strongly enough. But Eidos Montreal has already revealed that it will be changing some origins and designs in its iteration of the Guardian of the Galaxy cast. A hovering cube seen behind Raker in the trailer could prove to be this powerful item, but fans will have to wait until October to find out for sure, and discover the exact nature of Raker, the Church, and their mysterious Matriarch.
The other main draw of the latest teaser is how it shows off the game's snazzy technical capabilities. Running on PC at 4K with an Nvidia GeForce 3080, the demo showcases the game's promised ray-traced reflections and Nvidia DLSS. The result is certainly dazzling, though it remains to be seen how the beefy graphical capacity fares when actually playing the game at home.
Still, it's not all about the visual side of things. A previous trailer drew attention to the soundtrack of Guardians of the Galaxy, with Eidos Montreal revealing the importance of the game's music in a developer insight video. Just like in the MCU movies, Guardians will clearly have a lovingly-curated soundtrack to accompany players on their journey across the galaxy.
It's not that long now until the game releases, so naturally fans are making wild theories and guesses as to what will happen over the course of the game's story. Some are already suggesting that the "Matriarch" referred to in the Raker trailer could be Lady Hellbender, revealed in a previous video, though the savage monster-collecting of the good Lady might seem a strange addition to a self-proclaimed Universal Church of Truth. Answers will have to wait until October, though.
Guardians of the Galaxy launches October 26 for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.