It feels almost hard to believe, but just over a month ago was the launch of Marvel’s Avenger. The live service game seemed set to be a slam dunk with being based on the hugely popular IP with some of the biggest and most iconic characters in pop culture today. But it doesn’t seemed to have panned out that way. While the game has enjoyed continued updates, it saw some surprisingly soft debuts in some regions, and it seems the game has fallen out of the conversation completely at this point.
While neither Marvel nor publisher Square Enix have said anything official about the game’s sales (which is probably a bad indication all on its own), there’s been reports of low player counts across the board. For instance, Forbes recently reported that the PC player base has seemingly dwindled so quickly it’s become an issue with matchmaking. Combine that with almost non-existent streaming numbers and a bad picture is being painted. We know that DLC is coming in the form of new characters, but the question is will it ultimately be enough?
Crystal Dynamics’ Scot Amos sent a lengthy statement about the game and its current state to Kotaku. He reassured players that they are working on more content, pointing to the “two Hawkeyes” (in reference to Clint Barton and Kate Bishop, the first two post-launch character confirmed to be coming to the game) as an example. He also expressed optimism that players will come back across all platforms.
“To our players: every day we fight to make the best game possible for our community. We have a great community management team at Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix who funnel all of your concerns, suggestions, and feedback to the development team daily. We are listening. We are making fixes, improvements, and additions as fast as we safely can to make Marvel’s Avengers the game we all aspire it to be.
“As such, we have a number of new content pieces coming in the weeks ahead including: a totally new War Zone mission type called Tachyon Rifts, a new Outpost that’s a jumping off point for new story missions in the future, and AIM’s Cloning Lab, which requires a coordinated high-level group of four players to beat with new top-end loot rewards for finishing it. And in each of these updates we do tuning and bug fixing to enhance the overall experience.
“In addition, we’ve announced two new Heroes coming in the near future: Kate Bishop in Operation: Taking AIM, and after that the double-feature Operation starring Clint Barton… this is the “two Hawkeyes” we mentioned in the last War Table. These new Operations pick up right from where the main Reassemble campaign ended in the core game and will propel the overall world story forward with new mysteries and villains, as well as new multi-player content.
“Lastly, we will continue to add new content to the game in the coming months as we address issues and overall game balance, including loot distribution and quality of life features everyone is clamoring for to improve our day-to-day experience from accessibility to co-op communication tools to balancing the economy!
“We are confident that we’ll see PC players (as well as those on Xbox One and PlayStation 4) return to the game as we add exciting new late-game content and demonstrate that we continue to be focused on improving the game.”
While Amos is certainly putting his best foot forward, it doesn’t bode too well to have to have these reassures for what was supposed to be a live service just over a month after launch. Of course, these types of games have recovered in the past, with one of the key examples being the incredible revitalization of Final Fantasy 14. But there’s other games that haven’t been so lucky, with a prime example being Anthem, which experienced similar woes post-launch with the promise of a revival they are currently working on but is nowhere in sight for the near future. Can Marvel’s Avengers rise to the occasion and assemble in time? Let’s hope so.