In March, Crystal Dynamics finally provided a content road map for the troubled Marvel’s Avengers in advance of its next-generation release. Despite these promises, however, the game isn’t exactly out of the woods just yet. This month, Marvel’s Avengers Creative Director, Shaun Escayg, departed Crystal Dynamics for Naughty Dog and the title also failed to crack the top ten in the NPD sales charts for the month of March even after launching on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series platforms.
All of this seemingly adds more nails to Marvel’s Avengers proverbial coffin, however publisher Square Enix isn’t quite ready to throw in the towel just yet. Recently, Brian Waggoner, who worked on the sadly defunct free-to-play MMO Marvel Heroes, was brought on as a system designer for Marvel’s Avengers.
Before joining developer Gazillion Entertainment, Waggoner briefly interned at Marvel Entertainment’s interactive division where he helped guide development on such titles as Marvel: Avengers Alliance Tactics, Disney Infinity 2.0 and Guardians of the Galaxy: The Universal Weapon. Given Brian’s history, he sounds like a terrific addition to the Marvel’s Avengers team.
After what happened with Marvel Heroes, Brian wasn’t quite sure if he was ready to work on another high profile Marvel property, but in his words:
“Talking to the team at Crystal [Dynamics], seeing their passion for making a game the fans love and knowing the potential of the product were all big factors for me in making my choice.”
“One of the things that convinced me to take the job was the leadership of Crystal Dynamics telling me to give them honest feedback about the game and its issues and telling me there were no egos in the room. I did and they were very receptive to my suggestions,”
Marvel’s Avengers is available now on the PlayStation and Xbox family of consoles, Google Stadia and PC. It’s also available to PS Now owners for a limited time.
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