Watch: Marvel’s Avengers Deepfake Adds MCU Actors’ Faces To The Game

With just days to go until Marvel’s Avengers finally enters full release, concerns surrounding one of the game’s most controversial elements appears to have finally abated.

Not long after the debut of last year’s initial trailer, millions of MCU fans found it difficult to reconcile the fact that Crystal Dynamics’ interpretation of the superhero team looked different from their live-action counterparts. Similarities were present, however, leading to the former giving off an uncanny valley vibe. Over a year later, many of the leading characters, specifically Black Widow and Thor, have received countless visual changes which, while a reason has never specifically been given, could have come as a means to further distance both characters from Scarlett Johansson and Chris Hemsworth’s portrayals, respectively.

YouTuber BabyZone has decided though to have a crack at inserting the likeness of Robert Downey, Jr, Mark Ruffalo and others into the upcoming live service title, and the results, while mixed, are certainly worth checking out for yourself via the video above.

According to BabyZone, the effects above were achieved via the use of AI machine learning DeepFake technology, specifically DeepFaceLab 2.0, which was used to create the digital face models for each actor. The entire process took well over a month to finalize and the software was trained over 1 million iterations in order to achieve the final version present above. A hugely time-consuming task, then, but the content creator doesn’t intend to stop there. Once Marvel’s Avengers launches, BabyZone says they’ll have full access to cutscenes, enabling the creation of even more fan-made deepfakes.

Marvel’s Avengers is out September 4th for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC and Stadia. Two characters, Hawkeye and Spider-Man, have so far been confirmed for post-launch release, though only those who play on Sony’s console will have access to the latter. See here for the full story.