Marvel’s Avengers recently held a free weekend on PC, amassing its highest number of concurrent players in months. A peak of 10,000 users still pales in comparison to the biggest live-service games out there, but once the barrier of price was removed, it seems quite a few people were willing to give the superhero adventure a chance. The free trial was clearly a way to drum up interest ahead of the Black Panther: War for Wakanda expansion later this month, an update with an extensive solo campaign and plenty of other new features and changes for the base experience.
It’s the last shot for success, otherwise Marvel’s Avengers risks dooming itself to an early grave. Things could turn around, but such a shift in momentum would require sacrifices I’m unsure Square Enix is willing to make. The entire game needs to become free-to-play, permanently, or risk fading into obscurity before the publisher has a chance to recoup losses that are only mounting as development continues. A free trial could accommodate potential purchases, yet the die already feels cast. Nobody is on the fence anymore – if anything, they’ve leaped off the damn thing and started running in the opposite direction. Crystal Dynamics must be aware of this reputation.
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Whenever a title of this magnitude has a disastrous launch, many are quick to compare it to Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn. There’s something poetic about that, the act of a game rising from the ashes and achieving the impossible. However, A Realm Reborn had the Final Fantasy name to protect, while Marvel’s Avengers feels like a vague imitator of the cinematic universe that can’t stand without being compared to its live-action counterparts. It if does fail, I can see Disney sweeping it under the rug and forgetting it ever even existed. Remember Inhumans? Yeah, me neither.
It was doomed from the start, keen to exist alongside the cinematic universe while the creators behind it did everything they could to ensure this vision of the legendary team was absolutely its own thing. It is, but all of its heroes looking like Primark versions of globally recognised superstars only held it back from existing as a standalone product. From the E3 reveal onward, the atmosphere surrounding Marvel’s Avengers was tepid, with players and critics alike approaching it with caution as Crystal Dynamics struggled to describe exactly what the game was even meant to be. It was messy, and paved the way for a launch that couldn’t escape an avalanche of preconceptions that had already crashed down upon it.
For what it’s worth, I think the game is decent. The combat is fun, the characters are likeable, and the solo campaign feels like a robust narrative journey I could easily lose myself in. Once the live-service trappings began to surface, I just walked away. It was tedious, asking you to grind away to unlock boring cosmetics and endgame activities that featured little more than repetitive waves of enemies with bigger health bars. Marvel’s Spider Man arriving not long before Avengers didn’t help things either. Millions now adored a single-player outing that focused on player freedom and a new interpretation of Peter Parker that distanced itself from the films. Square Enix crashing the party and expecting us to get on board with a live-service title that seemed to forget everything that makes superheroes so compelling didn’t go down well. It underperformed critically and commercially, and unlike Final Fantasy, it doesn’t have the gaming pedigree to convince the hardcore to stick around and hope that things improve.
War for Wakanda, Hawkeye, and Kate Bishop are signs of Crystal Dynamics learning from its mistakes, opting for a beefy solo experience as opposed to something that focuses on multiplayer. Obviously the expansion will include online activities and the hero himself who can squad up with existing characters for a scrap, but story still comes first, and that’s vitally important.
While this might sound cynical, such a change of trajectory has me convinced that the team was abiding by the whims of a publisher when it came to developing Marvel’s Avengers as a live-service game. The solo campaign is by far its strongest asset – it’s where all of the game’s passion and creativity can be found. Once you’re thrust into the grind, it all feels soulless, like you’re playing for nothing more than cringe-inducing skins and the slightest slither of progression. This ethos is so integral to the foundation of the game that tearing it away and still being able to exist as a functioning product feels impossible. It needs to either risk going free-to-play to attract an audience or press the reset button, and neither option feels perfect.
Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn felt like lightning in a bottle. I’d struggle to see a Western studio replicate its success with a project that could be left behind and forgotten about as Square Enix and Marvel swallow their pride and vow to do better next time. Black Panther: War for Wakanda could change everything, but I don’t think it will. Marvel’s Avengers has so much going for it, but it’s buried beneath endless tedium and a live-service model it has failed to justify time and time again. There is a place for superheroes in gaming, but Square Enix has yet to find the perfect formula. Guardians of the Galaxy could be a winner, so I’ll just wait for that and accept Avengers for what it is, and hope it sticks around long enough to prove it can be something more.
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