The beating MMO Marvel’s Avengers is about to end. Developers will soon end support and even stop digital sales. The biggest gaming flop of 2020 is disappearing from the market. On MeinMMO we will show you how it came to this, what is happening now and whether you can still play the game in the future.
Marvel’s Avengers was a dedicated MMO project from Final Fantasy publisher Square Enix that aimed to combine looting & leveling with the world’s mightiest heroes. But even the test phases showed at the time that the recipe was not well received.
Full-price games with a service approach usually have a hard time, because there is often criticism that such games should contain a Battle Pass or purchasable cosmetics for real money. In addition, the gameplay loop is not motivating enough to keep you going for a long time.
In retrospect, it can be said that the criticism was justified. In addition, there were still many errors and problems in the game after the full release, which was already postponed 4 months. New content was also a long time coming.
Now those responsible are pulling the emergency brake: Marvel’s Avengers will receive its last update in March 2023 and will be supported until the end of September 2023. After that, the game is rebuilt so that it no longer offers a live service and the digital availability is ended.
The latest Marvel game doesn’t rely on service – check out a trailer of Midnight Sons here:
Midnight Suns shows new trailer, attracts Marvel stars with a real thunderstorm
Marvel’s Avengers: Already a flop when it was released
If you take a look at the Steam player numbers, it quickly becomes clear: the beating game had major problems from the start in building the necessary player base for a service game.
The highest level of simultaneous players was in the release month of September 2020 – that was just over 28,000 players. Even that was not enough for the high demands – currently one would not even have ended up in the top 30 of the most played games on Steam (via steamcharts.com / as of: 01/31/23).
It quickly went down to a few thousand players and finally there were only hundreds.
Marvel’s Avengers also came for the PlayStation and Xbox consoles and is even part of the Xbox Game Pass and PS Plus Extra subscription services. But the Steam numbers are a good indicator and show the problems of the MMO to get a decent number of players.
Continue playing, purchase only as a disc
What’s next? The developers have addressed the community in a blog (via avengers.crystald.com). Here the last update was announced, which should bring the final changes to the game:
Update 2.8 is coming on March 31st and unlocks all cosmetics from the real money store if you have bought the game. Even if you buy the game later, the cosmetics are free.
On September 30th it will finally be over: Support will stop working, digital purchases of Marvel’s Avengers are no longer possible, newly discovered errors will no longer be fixed.
Will you still be able to play Marvel’s Avengers? The title will be rebuilt so that you can continue to gamble solo and in multiplayer. You can continue to install the version you bought digitally, but you can no longer buy this version again.
Available disc versions are still purchasable and also work. Marvel’s Avengers live events will continue to rotate every 2 weeks, but are no longer truly “live.”
If you still have real-money currency in the game, you will get the other currencies in exchange. Here is the exchange overview:
The developers then have to share one last piece of bad news for players on Xbox and PC. A major point of criticism has not been resolved even after the closure: Spider-Man remains exclusive to PlayStation.
Personal opinion of the author: I was pretty hyped for the release and then I had my 50 hours of fun in the game. Unfortunately, Marvel’s Avengers didn’t work as a long-term service game – after the (really good) campaign and 2 leveled heroes it was over.
The missions just weren’t varied enough for that, the gameplay loop was ultimately based only on the different heroes, who all played differently. But even with an overbred Hulk, it’s no fun repeating the same patterns over and over again.
I had made up my mind a few times to try it again, at least to play the “new” raid and Black Panther. But it never managed to pull me in like a Destiny I’ve returned to many times.
If you’re new to the game but are into Loot & Leveling and/or Marvel Super Heroes, then be sure to check out Marvel’s Avengers – grab it on sale or play it through PS Plus Extra or Xbox Game Pass. But it never became a big hit.
Colleague Jürgen may be to blame again: I have a superpower: I can kill games and Marvel’s Avengers is my new victim