When Marvel’s Avengers first debuted at Square Enix’s E3 2019 presentation, there were a number of questions and concerns. One of them, unsurprisingly, was regarding the look of the iconic Avengers themselves. Call it the Marvel Cinematic Universe effect but many felt characters like Steve Rogers, Tony Stark and Natasha Romanoff looked off in more ways than one.
Since then, we’ve seen a number of improvements to the character models, which is in line with the development team’s stance on making them more polished. But even before going E3 2019, creative director Shaun Escayg knew the team had an up-hill battle to face with how the characters looked. Speaking to GamesRadar, Escayg said, “I mean, we knew we had that challenge…We’re going up against a 10 year history of movies.
“And you know, people forget really quickly, but when the first movie came out, they had the same problem. People were upset with the way these heroes looked. So we knew going in that we would always have that struggle.”
Even despite the slight changes being more positively received, Escayg believes it will be the gameplay that will curry the most favour at the end. “The focus for us was more on our original storyline, and how do we make sure that we stay true to that DNA of the characters in the comics and bring this story to life.” This reflected in the fact that the development team approached Stan Lee, the legendary creative leader for Marvel Comics, for input on the narrative.
Marvel’s Avengers is currently slated to release on May 15th 2020 for Xbox One, PS4 and PC. A series of prequel comics will arrive before that to tie into key parts of the story.