Even though the COVID-19 outbreak caused the world to seemingly halt in its tracks, it seems like we are still looking to have a pretty packed holiday in the gaming world. I mean, first and foremost, we’re looking at new consoles launching. But we can’t forget the game based on what might be the biggest single franchise in the world right now, Marvel’s Avengers. The superhero team is enjoyed by many around the world, and it seems those developing the game are taking that to heart.

As detailed via the official Twitter, the development teams want to focus a good deal on accessibility, both in the real world for players, as well as for the diversity within the game itself. For instance of the latter, they’ve done motion capture for wheelchair-bound NPCs to make it more realistic. In the former, they have a variety of difficulties, subtitle options and high contrast user interface to help low vision players. You can read more details in the link below, and they also say they will remain open to adding more accessibility options post-launch.

Marvel’s Avengers is set to launch September 4th. The game will also premiere its co-op gameplay sometime next month, so stay tuned for that.

Accessibility is an ongoing pursuit, and we're excited to share our journey so far. Visit the Square Enix blog for details on how we're improving accessibility options and representation in Marvel's Avengers!https://t.co/flWXawPdZX pic.twitter.com/fyZ9yLwau3

— Marvel's Avengers (@PlayAvengers) May 28, 2020

Marvel’s Avengers was another game that was supposed to be here this month, but got hit with a delay to later in the year. The game will allow you to play as some of the most iconic Avengers, as well as a few new faces, in a brand new adventure. Today we got a look at the game’s ESRB rating, and its description points at what we could expect from both the plot and gameplay.

The game is getting a T for Teen rating, as you’d expect, and first off it talks about the Avengers going up against an evil corporation. You can draw some obvious conclusions there if you’re familiar with the source material, and if you really want to outright spoil yourself you can read through the leaked achievements list through here. It also references going through a variety of combat missions, that seems to hint at a mission structure of some kind.

“This is an action-adventure game in which players assume the roles of the Avengers battling an evil corporation. From a third-person perspective, players engage in a variety of combat missions using each character’s weapons/abilities; characters use melee combat (e.g., punches, kicks, throws, smashes), pistols and machine guns, lasers, thrown projectiles (e.g., hammer, shield, rock) to defeat enemies. Combat can be frenetic, with frequent explosions, cries of pain, and gunfire. The word “sh*t” is heard in the game.”

Marvel’s Avengers is slated to come out on September 4th for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, and Stadia. So far, no delay related to COVID-19 has been announced, so as far as we know that is still the date Square Enix is aiming for.

Marvel’s Avengers was one of the many games that got hit with the delay flu earlier this year. Once slated to hit shelves this May, it was pushed all the way back to September. It promises a story starring the characters known and loved from the various Marvel properties that have exploded over the last few years. Not much has been said about the game since the delay happened, but we potentially have a new leak pointing to what the game’s release structure will look like.

A listing allegedly appeared on the Microsoft Store for a Deluxe Edition of the game. As of now, there’s been nothing said about this edition (though we have seen a collector’s edition of the game before). The listing has since disappeared, but the internet never forgets. as seen from Twitter user Idle Sloth below. The interesting thing, as they point out with some emojis, is that it’s listed to come out 5 days earlier than the new September 4th release date, on August 31st.

It wouldn’t be the first time early access is used as an incentive for a premium edition of a Square Enix title. Shadow of the Tomb Raider, for instance, had a similar release in 2018. As it stands now, we’ll have to treat this as a rumor, since the original listing has seemingly vanished. We’ll keep you updated when something more official is announced.

https://twitter.com/IdleSloth1984/status/1227911656640000001?s=20

Recently, though, Square Enix, released the entire tutorial-prologue level of the game. While the code’s not final, this gives us a proper look at the tech being deployed, both in terms of cutscenes and actual gameplay.

Engine and Lighting Overview

With Crystal Dynamics developing the title, Marvel’s Avengers is built on the Foundation Engine. This is interesting because of the performance and scaleability implications.

Because a large part of the engine is spent exploring poorly-lit interiors, light and shadow play a key role–the Foundation engine utilizes deferred rendering to cheaply implement multiple lightsources. This carries over to Marvel’s Avengers, but with different objectives in mind–much of the action in Avengers takes place in constrained, outdoor environments. A lot of the spectacle comes from particle-heavy effects. Dense, emissive particle effects are the key takeaway here–when Hulk throws a flaming car across the Golden Gate bridge, the emissive lighting tracks across the road. We see optimizations in the footage Square Enix showed, light sources up close are emissive, but distant light sources aren’t. Regardless, in game, this greatly enhances the moment to moment spectacle.

Material Rendering 

Physically based rendering is most impactful when there’s a large amount of metallic surfaces on display. Avenger’s urban environments have plenty of these–from cars and tanks to bridges. We’re happy to note that Crystal Dynamics has significantly improved on their material rendering pipeline here, delivering physically accurate materials that provide a convincing backdrop to the extensive particle effects.

Character Rendering and Texture Work 

WIth an increased focus on the narrative experience, Crystal Dynamics invested a lot towards character rendering. As a consequence, cutscenes looked superb and frequently gave Uncharted 4 a run for its money. While Avengers is a third-person beat-em-up, we’ve seen a lot of cutscenes in the material Square Enix has shared so far, including in the prologue level. This is a departure from the mindless brawling we were expecting and Crystal has repurposed Foundation’s character rendering approach to great effect. Subsurface scattering is deployed on skin surfaces and, together with high resolution 4K texture work, each Avenger looks convincing. There’s a lot of high-frequency detail present, such as individual notches on zippers–we expect the game will look stunning at 4K. Models are suitably detailed, with five-figure poly counts. Considering that much of the action is linear and up-close, Crystal can afford to invest a big part of the polygon budget towards life-like character rendering.

PureHair is another character rendering feature that carries over to Avengers from the engine. Square Enix studios are among the few that actually leverage AMD’s excellent open source hair rendering solution. Purehair uses GPU compute to render a high volume of dynamic, physics-based hair, with over 30,000 strands per character. Avengers features plenty of long-haired character models. PureHair makes Thor’s locks flow convincingly, without the massive performance penalty of, say, HairWorks.

Anti-Aliasing 

We’re seeing what looks like a high quality temporal AA implementation here. The engine offers SMAA and extremely intensive SSAA. Since Avengers utilized a deferred renderer, MSAA isn’t viable to implement here. While there is a slight loss of detail, the game’s cinematic art direction works well with a softer presentation. And the temporal stability, together with the excellent motion blur, provide a uniquely smooth experience, even at the 30 FPS console standard.

Particle Effects

Particle rendering is a major part of the technical spectacle in Avengers, and Crystal has evidently invested a considerable amount of time in this department. In a superhero action game, particle effects are especially important, since the moment-to-moment gameplay centres on “blowing things up.”  Particles appear to render at full resolution. This is great for console players who typically have to make do with half or even quarter-res particle effects in many games. Volumetric particle volumes in-game receive and emit light. Explosions create fireballs that emit light onto nearby surfaces. Meanwhile other light sources, including the sun, cast light on particle volumes. 

The Post Process Pipeline 

Crystal implements a whole range of post-process techniques to great effect here. We were particularly impressed by their high quality motion blur. This is an expensive motion blur implementation, with a high sample count. However, the pay-off is in very smooth camera panning and object movement. Objects explode and go flying at every direction at almost every point during gameplay. This makes high-quality motion blur very important in lending the game its cinematic flair. We see bloom lighting implemented as well. Extensive use of bloom works with Avengers’ bigger-than-life art style, and gives explosions added oomph.

Crystal deploys their  BTAO ambient occlusion again here in Avengers. PC gamers will likely have the option of opting for higher quality HBAO+. However, BTAO delivers reasonable, temporally stable ambient occlusion, with good coverage and not too much “haloing.”

Depth of field also makes the cut, with a higher quality dynamic depth of field implementation during cutscenes and static DoF in the far background used during regular gameplay. We see limited use of radial blur as well, particularly during special attacks.

Conclusion 

Marvel’s Avengers both looks and plays well, if the gameplay trailer and prologue level are anything to go by. But, regardless, this is shaping up to be a very interesting superhero title, and not just from a purely technical perspective.

Marvel’s Avengers is going to attract a lot of players- not only because Square Enix and developers Crystal Dynamics are putting a lot of their eggs in this basket, but also because simply by virtue of being a Marvel game – and an Avengers game, no less – it will appeal to the all-things-Marvel-loving masses of today’s day and age like few other games can and will.

Given that, there is an interesting question to be asked about how the game approaches difficulty. In light of the large crowds the game will be attracting, will it be going for a more accessible approach, or will it instead look to offer a challenging experience to those who dive in?

Speaking to IGN Italy, Crystal Dynamics studio head Scot Amos said that it’ll look to strike a balance between both. According to Amos, the game will be accessible enough to appeal to the large number of Marvel fans who will be jumping into the game. At the same time, for those who’re looking for more of a challenge, it will also “allow the most demanding to study what is the best way to build or play the various heroes.”

It’s a tricky balance to strike, and not an easy task by any means, so here’s hoping Crystal Dynamics manage to get this right.

Marvel’s Avengers is out on May 15, 2020 for the PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Stadia.