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It is hard to believe that it has been over a year since Marvel’s Avengers released, and during that time we’ve covered some of the new character releases, alongside our original comprehensive review of the game. Since the release of War for Wakanda back on August 17th, a lot has happened, and now with the, highly controversial, PlayStation only Spider-Man release on November 30th, it’s time to get all caught up on what you may have missed over the past few months.
Marvel’s Avengers has had a pretty rough road. While my initial impressions of the story portion of the game earned it an amicable score in the review, I couldn’t help but be let down as the months passed and the content and fixes just couldn’t hold my attention. For a long time, Marvel’s Avengers seemed to be skating along, and recently the games initial unprofitable and continued underperforming nature prompted a stark rebuke from Square Enix president Yosuke Matsuda in the SE Annual report when he claimed that the game was an “ambitious project” that “overcame unexpected difficulties” but still resulted in a “disappointing outcome.” He goes on to say that future projects will need to be given to studios that mesh well with the design of the game, pointing to the possibility that Crystal Dynamics was ill-equipped to handle Marvel’s Avengers.
“I would also note that “Marvel’s Avengers” was an ambitious title for us in that we took on the GaaS (Games as a Service) model. We overcame a variety of unexpected difficulties in the final phase of the game’s development, including needing to transition to work-from-home due to the pandemic. We were able to surmount these challenges and release the game, but it has unfortunately not proven as successful as we would have liked.
Nonetheless, taking on the GaaS model highlighted issues that we are likely to face in future game development efforts such as the need to select game designs that mesh with the unique attributes and tastes of our studios and development teams
While the new challenge that we tackled with this title produced a disappointing outcome, we are certain that the GaaS approach will grow in importance as gaming becomes more service oriented.”
-Yosuke Matsuda, President and Representative Director, Square Enix Group
The hits unfortunately kept coming in October when Marvel’s Avengers introduced the XP and Material consumable to the marketplace breaking their promise to only sell cosmetic items. The backlash was so severe that in just barely a month’s time Crystal Dynamics removed the consumables from the marketplace for good.
We have decided that by the end of today we will remove Hero’s Catalysts and Fragment Extractors for purchase. pic.twitter.com/8am9nSstP2
— Marvel’s Avengers (@PlayAvengers) November 2, 2021
This was just the latest controversy, as anyone who has followed the game even prior to its launch knows about the firestorm that surrounded the exclusivity of Spider-Man, which is finally headed to the game November 30th, but only for PlayStation players. This kind of pulls back the curtain a little on how poor decisions from the top have created these unnecessary problems that has led to Marvel’s Avengers player base to dwindle, now with just several hundred players on Steam according to SteamDB. It has been clear all along that new characters and content drive players to the game, and segregating one of the most popular heroes to PlayStation, especially when the game has the opportunity to excel on Microsoft’s Game Pass, is a very poor move.
Despite the controversy, the team has been optimistic about its upcoming content, with an updated Roadmap which shows off what’s to come at the end of the month. These features include a new raid featuring Ulysses Klaue, new events, better gear upgrading and a power level cap increase, and a new enemy type.
Mark those calendars! A slew of content and reworks is all dropping on November 30!?? Klaw Raid: Discordant Sound?? Gear Upgrade and Resources Reworks?? Earned Cosmetics??? Spider-Man Hero Event for PS4 and PS5?? …and more!Read – https://t.co/W68pC9UlC2 pic.twitter.com/YcNMzXleog
— Marvel’s Avengers (@PlayAvengers) November 4, 2021
That will likely mark the end of any major updates that we see until 2022. Will Marvel’s Avengers continue with its content throughout 2022? I guess we will have to wait and find out, but until then True Believers, let us hope the next update hits the spot.
