God Of War's Christopher Judge To Star As Black Panther In Marvel's Avengers

Christopher Judge will voice Black Panther--aka King T'Challa--in Marvel's Avengers moving forward. He will make his first appearance in an upcoming DLC expansion, War for Wakanda, which is coming this August.

In an in-depth interview with Entertainment Weekly, Judge--who is best known as the booming voice of Kratos, the star of the God of War series--said that he initially turned down the role because he didn't think he could do it justice. Judge feels that the late Chadwick Boseman's performance in the 2018 film had forever defined the role for an entire generation, meaning that there was no way that he could measure up.

However, after discussing the role with his children and his mother, he decided to take it, joking that they would "disown him" if he didn't agree to portray King T'Challa. Narrative lead Hannah MacLeod and narrative consultant Evan Narcisse both emphasize that this is a very different take on the character than fans saw in the acclaimed 2018 film. There, T'Challa had just donned the mantle of the Black Pather--in War for Wakanda, he's worn the mask for quite a while already.

Judge said that the role presented new challenges for him, as he was "gently coerced" into adopting a higher-pitched voice for the role than his usual deep tones. He also worked with a dialogue coach to develop his Wakandan accent for the game.

War for Wakanda will add a new single-player campaign that will run for more than 25 hours, which would be longer than the base game's campaign of about 15 hours. (A developer has since clarified that figure also includes the base campaign's runtime.) It will feature Ulysses Klaw, a major antagonist of T'Challa that fans might remember from the 2018 film. Thanks to a recent update, Avengers players can now pick the same hero when playing with their friends, which is a change that many players appreciated.