Concluding what's become one of the oddest gaming occurrences in 2021, Crystal Dynamics has issued an update to Marvel's Avengers on PS5 that corrects the bug that displayed a user's IP address. No explanation for the Marvel's Avengers bug has been provided. No real transparency regarding the process was shared. But Crystal Dynamics did acknowledge the issue after it started and has now confirmed that the issue has been fixed so that IP addresses are no longer displayed in Marvel's Avengers on PS5.
The issue cropped up on June 22 with the release of Marvel's Avengers patch 1.8.0, which included the Cosmic Cube event and other in-game improvements. Players on PS5 updated their game, started it up, and saw that their IP addresses and account names were listed on-screen with no way to turn it off. No other platforms were affected by the issue. No explanation for why or how the issue had occurred.
What was perhaps the most significant problem related to IP addresses being displayed had to do with online streamers. A streamer would be broadcasting live and then load up Marvel's Avengers. The game would then reveal the streamer's IP address to all of their viewers. Theoretically, this IP address could then be used by malicious viewers to DDOS the streamer, or worse. Sharing an IP address publically is a very risky endeavor, so the Marvel's Avengers bug potentially made a lot of streamers vulnerable to a digital attack.
About the only comment that Crystal Dynamics offered on the situation was a warning to streamers playing Marvel's Avengers on PS5. The developers asked PS5 players to "refrain from streaming or posting screenshots" until a fix could be made for the issue. Alongside the release of the new patch, Crystal Dynamics gave a heads up that it was once again "safe to stream" on PS5.
While the lack of explanation for the situation and the fact that it happened in the first place are both unfortunate, Crystal Dynamics does deserve some credit. It took just a day for Crystal Dynamics to issue a patch correcting the issue. That's a very quick turnaround for any fix or patch, so the team clearly took it very seriously.
As for what probably happened that caused the issue in the first place, the IP address and account information showing was very likely to be a piece of testing code left in that the team forgot to remove. While some might be worried about a malicious effort behind the problem, that's entirely unlikely. Sometimes developers trying to meet a deadline make mistakes. That's what patches are for.
Marvel's Avengers is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.