Marvel’s Avengers (opens in new tab) just cannot seem to catch a break. It’s been through a lot over the past couple of years—ugly bugs, a paid booster debacle, sass from Square Enix, and an average concurrent player count that hasn’t come close to breaking triple digits since mid-2021—and now it looks like the next big character reveal was spoiled during a livestream with none other than Crystal Dynamics design lead Brian Waggoner.
The incident took place during a Marvel’s Avengers stream on the official Xbox Twitch channel featuring Waggoner and Frank “Techniq” Ellerbe. During a lull in the action, Ellerbe began discussing “a funny fact about She-Hulk.” He acknowledged that he wasn’t certain whether he was allowed to share the information, but quickly decided to jump in with both feet anyway.
“My acting coach is actually the voice of She-Hulk,” Ellerbe said. “And I won’t say her name, because I don’t know if that was public knowledge yet. I think it is, it was announced, but…”
At this point, Waggoner, who had been looking on in what I would describe as silent consternation, spoke up. “Nope. Nope, we’ve never announced She-Hulk.”
Whoops! This happened on the official Xbox Twitch channel today. pic.twitter.com/yDPqb0kKW0July 5, 2022
From there, the conversation spluttered out quickly and awkwardly (opens in new tab). Waggoner said “we don’t announce things,” which is kind of an odd position to take about a game that very clearly does announce things, like for instance the addition of Jane Foster as Mighty Thor (opens in new tab). Then Ellerbe took a shot at walking back the statement, with minimal success.
“Oh, then never mind,” he replied, laughing awkwardly. “I don’t know if that’s true or not, but hopefully—hopefully!—the source will be right. We’ll have to see in the future.”
Waggoner doesn’t look entirely happy about the situation, but stays cool throughout. “We’re working on our next hero, who we haven’t said who it’s gonna be yet,” he said. “There will be a time for that. We’re focused right now on kind of celebrating the work the team did on Jane and making sure—doing things like this so people can see that. When it’s time to talk about who’s next, we’ll talk about who’s next.”
Even without Ellerbe’s surprise drop (and, let us not overlook, the very obvious absence of a denial from Waggoner), She-Hulk is a good bet for the next Marvel’s Avengers addition. It’s an obvious tie-in with the new She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (opens in new tab) series that’s coming to Disney Plus on August 17, and that crossover timing fits with the previous new hero addition: Jane Foster was added to the game (opens in new tab) just a couple weeks ahead of the theatrical release of Thor: Love and Thunder.