Marvel's Avengers Reveals One Particularly Challenging Aspect of Its Design

Managing the appearances and personalities of some of the biggest superheroes in the world while still portraying them in a unique enough way to make Marvel's Avengers stand apart already sounds like quite the task. It's no wonder then that one of Crystal Dynamics' biggest challenges when designing the characters was figuring out how they'll all work as a team while still being distinctly different characters to the point that it felt like players were getting new experiences by controlling each one. Crystal Dynamics studio head Scot Amos recently addressed the work that went into navigating this very challenge and how the team went about balancing the characters.

From Black Widow to the massive Hulk, the differences between the characters are obvious at a surface level when you're looking at how they look and what they're capable of. Amos said in a discussion published on the PlayStation Blog that bringing out those differences in the characters' gameplay was one a real challenge that the team had to figure out when designing the Marvel's Avengers versions of the heroes.

"You look at how Thor plays, how Widow plays, how Hulk plays — we're talking flight, or shooting and grappling, or massive strength — and they're all so different," Amos said. "So, the challenge was to be able to balance those differences so they each play their role in the game without any one being overpowered or too dominant, but at the same time never feeling that you're playing the same character in a different skin."

While people probably already have an idea of which hero they're going to prefer playing as the most, we'll be able to have a better idea of how each of them play by progressing through the story mode where you'll have to take control of different heroes. We've seen parts of those sequences in action in the gameplay demos that have been released already where players pilot the various members of the superhero team. There will also be a beta coming first to the PlayStation 4 before the game is released where you'll be able to figure out early on which hero you prefer.

Directly related to how each hero played, Amos also talked about the new Warzones game mode that'll be in Marvel's Avengers. This'll be where players can team up with others to form the superhero team they've always wanted to control.

Marvel's Avengers will release for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, and Google Stadia platforms on May 15, 2020.