Marvel’s Avengers Expansion: Black Panther – War for Wakanda
Crystal Dynamics wanted to craft a brand new Wakanda for Black Panther: War for Wakanda—a Marvel’s Avengers DLC—which is both visually distinct yet familiar to Marvel fans. Working with multiple development partners, they approached Virtuos to co-develop the DLC and oversee the development process.
For Black Panther: War for Wakanda, a Marvel’s Avengers DLC, Crystal Dynamics wanted to present Wakanda as a visually distinct world that stands out from other levels in the main campaign.
Optimization was also necessary to ensure smooth gameplay across generation 8 and 9 consoles: PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, as well as PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S.
As an iconic setting, Wakanda needed to be instantly recognizable, while still being a new and exciting landscape to explore. It also had to look vastly different from other Marvel’s Avengers levels due to the nation’s history of isolation in the Marvel universe. This limited the reuse potential of assets used in the main game’s missions.
The right development partner would not only have to fulfill this requirement, but also possess the technical skills and flexibility to complement the game’s dynamic development:
- The War for Wakanda DLC release window was not fixed
- It was heavily subject to narrative changes and other development constraints
- Multiple external partners were involved in its development
Having previously worked on Marvel’s Avengers, Virtuos was a natural choice of co-development partner for Crystal Dynamics. To create the unique landscapes of Wakanda, Virtuos proposed a quickly scalable system of combining newly created assets with kitbashed existing ones. This kept budgets low and drove efficient development.
Virtuos also remained flexible to narrative updates by using placeholder scenarios within the new levels to represent key events. Once these were approved, Virtuos could quickly
replace them, ensuring development could take place with minimal delays.
To collaborate with multiple development partners, Virtuos also created clear documentation, thus minimizing miscommunication, simplifying co-development, and facilitating seamless handovers between development partners.
