Marvel’s Avengers might be all set to feature Earth’s Mightiest Heroes in a starring role, but they’re not the same characters you’ve come to love over the last decade.
Ever since developer Crystal Dynamics unleashed its first cinematic trailer for next year’s triple-A blockbuster, one subsequent major talking point has revolved around its character designs. Captain America, Thor, Iron Man and Black Widow, while bearing some similarities to their MCU counterparts, are otherwise wildly different interpretations of the same comic book icons. For frequent moviegoers, the disparity is surely jarring but in light of recent comments made by Crystal creative director Noah Hughes, it’s an important distinction to make.
Speaking to Digital Spy, Hughes confirms that the title, despite sharing identical characters, settings and even potential plot overlap, bears zero relation to the franchise’s Cinematic Universe.
What does this mean, exactly? Well for starters, any events to have transpired in the films – Ultron, Thanos, the attack on Manhattan, etc. – never happened in this interpretation. In simplest terms, we’re seeing the slate wiped clean in for a new beginning. Not only does this allow the game’s creators to start fresh without a decade’s worth of baggage weighing them down, but perhaps explore opportunities never pursued in the MCU.
Such a split, of course, means Marvel’s Avengers is considered non-canon to its big screen counterpart, but that’s to be expected. What’s currently unknown, however, is if Marvel is intending for its latest video game venture to be the beginning of a so-called Interactive Universe. We’ve already received hints of its existence via a shared connection with last year’s Spider-Man, so that very well could prove to be the case.
Ultimately, however, we’ve no choice but to sit patiently and wait, but expect further clues to surface prior to Marvel’s Avengers‘ launch next year. Stay tuned.
