It looks like the upcoming Black Panther release will include quite a bit more than expected. In the latest Marvel’s Avengers stream, Crystal Dynamics assembled alongside their UI director, who offered a closer look at their complete revamp of their menus. A big takeaway from the stream is that this new layout got established to also further expand it with their plans for gear and other additions to the game.
The first major change to enable this was to create the possibility of a Loadout, which has been a highly requested feature since the game launched. They did confirm that the function won’t yet be available with the launch of War for Wakanda, but it will follow. It’s the first step to enable its functionality. Here’s the first look at the new character UIs:
The first takeaway is how they centralized all options surrounding your character are. So, your loadout is not just a specific gear set but also what takedowns, emotes or skin you want to support that specific design. That’s not all, as we also have a more visual flair depending on which character you play, as when you switch characters, it’ll change the overall color layout. We also got a better look at Black Panther in the stream and his color template.
The entire set-up is grid-based moving forward, and everything was united here. Skills are currently a separate element, but will also play into the structure of the Loadouts moving forward. It also is optimized to allow D-Pad use, which has been requested a well. There’s also a noticeable gap with skins and gear, which could hint at some future planned expansions. There’ also the naming of “Emotes” and this set-up will enable the inclusion of an emote wheel in the future. If you want to manage your gear, you can do it in a separate menu.
They’ve upgraded the number of gear pieces you can keep. So, it’s now eleven pieces rather than the usual nine. You can also access the storage at any point in this menu and are no longer dependent on going back to the Helicarrier to access it. The true highlights here are the options to lock gear. So, you no longer can accidentally delete it. You can now also just hold a button to go through all gear, rather than doing it individually. They’ve also included the mass dismantling function alongside a mass moving option to add it into the storage. So, gear management was given a complete overhaul. They also added pulsating arrows to let you know instantly what gear you can upgrade.
Furthermore, they’ve acknowledged that the text was too small. So, it’s now given a bigger spotlight and is also not hidden away in other menus. It’ll make going through the various Codex entries much easier instead of leaning forward on your couch. The overall UI changes will affect multiple sections of the game, as they even updated the Faction
Yes, you no longer have to switch between machines to select your Faction missions. It’s all accessible through one computer, and it’s uncertain if there will be a new icon to highlight this option. It’ll take some time to adapt to the changes, but it’s very promising to see these adaptations moving forward. Crystal Dynamics said this is the first step towards a lot more functions and adaptations.
