Crystal Dynamics has an amazing project on its hands right now, with Marvel's Avengers currently in the works and set for release next year.
The studio has overseen the release of some major titles, most notably the Tomb Raider series, but the Avengers game happens to be their biggest ever, according to studio head Scott Amos.
"From our side, it's the biggest thing that we've ever done," he told GamesIndustry.biz in an interview. "We now have five studios working together to pull this off. Crystal Dynamics at Redwood Shores, we opened a new studio in Bellevue called Crystal North West. We have our partners in the Netherlands, Nixxes, which has a big team of people who we've worked with for 20 years. Eidos Montreal was our sister studio for all of Tomb Raider, so they're working on this. And even Square Enix Japan has folks from the tech group working with us."
Scott revealed that, since this latest project took hold, several changes have been implemented and multiple experts have been hired. Vince Napoli, a designer who worked on the award-winning God of War has been brought in to help with combat while director Dave Fifield has also been brought in following his contributions to games such as Halo and Call of Duty.
As for Marvel, they're considered to be partners in this venture. The franchise is described as being more like part of the development team than just the ones who own the license.
"They're not just collaborators, they're partners," Amos explained. "They're embedded with us as a team. We talk to them daily. We send them everything we're working on, we have builds they play and get feedback. We bring them to the studio and go through it together.
"Bill is 25 years at Marvel. He knows everybody. We're like, 'So we have a character, and this storyline we saw in issue x,' and he's like, 'I can get you the writer, let's go see what that person thinks'... We have this amazing collaboration with them that lets us do a little of the iconic fan service and a lot of doing an original take that makes it feel fresh and familiar."
Marvel's Avengers has commanded the attention of gamers following its announcement at E3. The game will launch for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC and Google Stadia on May 15, 2020.