Nothing is perfect on the first go, although the 2008 Iron Man film sure got as close to that as possible. However, even when that was announced it saw quite a bit of backlash. In the most recent issue of PlayStation Magazine, Marvel’s Avengers Creative Director and writer Shaun Escayg talked about how the studio was expecting the backlash, and compared it to the backlash the films originally got.
Escayg said the following to PlayStation Magazine:
This is 80 years of Marvel history to play with, and you know, a lot of people forget, but when the movies first came out, there was an uproar from fans. Like ‘this is not how Iron Man speaks!’ And now we face the same thing with the game. We kind of anticipated that.
This isn’t the first time Escayg has given these statements. Back in November, he told GamesRadar that the game was competing with 10 years of the movies and, as such, would always see a backlash. Shortly after the game was originally announced, there was some disappointment in how the characters looked. Back then, Escayg said that there were no plans to change the character designs, just polish them up more as the game continued development, though that polish has been much better received than the initial unveiling.
Escayg also talked about the creative process behind developing Marvel’s Avengers. He said his goal was to sit down and figure out each playable character’s struggle. This struggle could then be used for various things, such as how to push the plot forward, or what sort of gameplay could be expected from them. While we don’t know the full playable character list quite yet, the most recent character set to join was Ms. Marvel, giving an exciting new look we don’t normally see for the franchise. An upcoming prequel novel also focuses on both Doctor Strange and Doctor Voodoo, giving us another hint at who may show up in the full release.
Escayg is no stranger to video game development and has quite a bit of history in the industry to draw upon. Originally working for Blur Studios, Escayg assisted with games such as Mass Effect 2, Prototype, DC Universe Online, and Terminator Salvation. Eventually, he joined the team at Naughty Dog, where he also worked on The Last of Us.
[Source: PlayStation Magazine Feb. 2020 issue via Respawn First]
