No, the new Avengers game won’t update its character designs

Lead creative director, Shaun Escayg, says the Avengers game character designs will stay the same, but the E3 trailer doesn’t feature the game’s final graphics.

We’re obviously still brooding over Avengers: Endgame. Thankfully, we have a lot of Avengers-related content to distract us from our own still reeling emotions, such as Spider-Man: Far From Home, an adorable companion book, and new Avengers video game. While Square Enix’s Avengers game conjured up a lot of opinions and even more criticism, the game developer notes that the final game will not feature any revised character designs.

Following the fan-led dismay, Crystal Dynamics’ lead creative director Shaun Escayg promises some revisions, but there won’t be any character redesigns. According to Game Spot, the final gameplay will reflect a better quality version because the E3 teaser was of a pre-alpha version of the game.

Escayg told The Hollywood Reporter that the game was never designed to mirror any of the MCU actors’ appearances:

"We are always listening to, and welcome feedback from our community. There are currently no plans to change our character designs."

While many fans have criticized the game, they aren’t necessarily disappointed that Captain America, Black Widow, Iron Man, Bruce Banner, and Thor don’t resemble their on-screen actors.

Sure, some of us are a little bitter that it isn’t an open-world game. Even if the video game won’t appease the multitudes of fans who are just overall underwhelmed by the current quality of the game and character designs, we’re glad that Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix aren’t going to overhaul the character design.

We know that the E3 teaser for the Avengers game looks like it’s meant for a mobile game. Hear us out: This news is actually great. Perhaps the character models aren’t the most lifelike or ideal for us, but crafting a complete overhaul would exploit the game designers.

Some people may enjoy ragging on the lackluster E3 presentation or using literally any of the characters as timely memes. However, corporations that cater content to appease fans after an underwhelming (or just bad) trailer debut take advantage of their often underpaid and overworked designers and developers — just to get the product up to their audience’s standards.

The redesign following the Sonic film backlash is exemplary of why companies making these fan-appeasing changes aren’t always intrinsically good. After all, the company itself has nothing to lose over this extra work. But the same designers and artists are the ones who have to work even quicker under the same (or similar) contract.

Obviously, we’re not pointing any fingers at the fans in either situation. Broadcasting any grievances or joking remarks isn’t the problem here. We’re pointing at the companies that can spin these mass critiques to churn out a bigger profit at the expense of their creators’ mental health and time. (Because essentially, it’s one big corporate power play.)

Marvel’s Avengers releases on May 15, 2020.