Crystal Dynamics has hired top talent from a number of AAA studios including Visceral and Naughty Dog, to work on The Avengers Project.
Former Naughty Dog Creative Director Shaun Escayg and Stephen Barry, a 27 year veteran at EA/Visceral games are among fifteen new hires by Crystal Dynamics. Only Escayg and Barry, however, have been confirmed to be working on the upcoming Avengers Project title.
Escayg was the Creative Director and writer of Uncharted: The Lost Legacy and was the Director of Photography and Animation Supervisor on The Last of Us. He says that he’s “thrilled to join Crystal as Creative Director and be aligned with a team as passionate about telling great character based stories as I am.”
Barry held multiple positions at Electronic Arts and was formerly the Director of Product Development at Visceral Games, where he worked on several games including Dead Space. He says that “Crystal’s been around almost as long as I’ve been in the business. The immediate chemistry and camaraderie has been exactly what I’d hoped for.”
Marvel announced a partnership with Square Enix back in January of 2017, to make Avengers titles, but this was the first real update on who specifically will be working on the game.
Scot Amos, Co-Head of Crystal Dynamics, says that the company is committed to delivering a “completely original Avengers experience to our gamers, and that means we are always looking to add amazing developers to our existing best in class studio talent.”
Crystal Dynamics’ last game, Rise of the Tomb Raider, launched on Xbox One and Xbox 360 in November of 2015 to wide acclaim. Critics praised the titles beautiful graphics, deep story and fun exploration, making it one of the best games released in 2015. Since the PlayStation 4 and Windows versions of the game have been released. The Tomb Raider Franchise has sold over 63 million copies to date.
While they haven’t had their own game in a while, the Avengers have recently appeared in a number of games, such as Lego Marvel Superheroes 2 and Marvel vs. Capcom. Sony is also currently working on a Spiderman game that debuted at E3 last year.
