Marvel’s Avengers, One Month Later

An ominous shadow hangs over the future of Marvel’s Avengers. While some corners of the game’s community are holding out hope for the darker clouds to part and a shining beam of updates and new content to come through, this endless loot brawler hasn’t received the same enthusiasm as other service games like Destiny 2 or Warframe.

Of course, what separates the most successful live service games from the rest are the years they spend learning from their mistakes and harnessing the reserve of good will that their most devoted players have to remain excited and pass that excitement on to their friends. They overcome lukewarm reception and the criticisms of their most vocal players to keep players engaged in spite of their nitpicking.

One month later, Avengers hovers in an uncertain place. A shortage of quality of life features, persistent bugs and lack of satisfying post-game content have begun to undercut the enthusiasm of a player base passionate about these much beloved characters. While it’s incredibly unlikely that the game will be forced to retreat into the shadows like Crucible or be taken offline like Disintegration, the team at Crystal Dynamics have a long hard road ahead of them to overcome these myriad issues.

By all rights, Marvel’s Avengers should be a dream product. Its premise wraps the potential of perpetual engagement and hoped for monetization within the cozy embrace of a universally beloved brand. Five years of development resulted in a game I gave a 7/10 in our official review, in which I expressed being hopeful for its future, but felt reluctant to recommend to anyone who might want to save their precious gaming dollars for only the most satisfying experiences.

Instead, it’s something of a sport for casual observers to dunk on this game. And not without reason. Fans of the comic books and movies pined for an extravagant narrative role-playing game, or expansive open world sandbox, and little interest in hardcore raid-style content or loot treadmills. But those are strawman complaints that ignore how the game is disappointing the players who are actually on board with grinding and PvE challenges.

Forbes’ Paul Tassi notes that the game is plagued by too many technical issues for him to continue to play. Epic missions such as the fourteen floor “Last Avenger Standing” mission or a 48 floor Mega-Hive are “too long and too punishing to continue to be decimated” by bugs. Tassi reports that while his team is strong enough that he’s not really “in danger of failing based on my merit” he worries about the game’s technical instability screwing him over.

Even when technical issues are absent or overcome in their experiences, many feel Marvel’s Avengers is not generous enough with its rewards. It’s a complaint that’s struck many service games like Destiny 2 at launch and it’s pretty bad here as well. Players hoping to secure exotics, cosmetic patterns and other high value loot to perfect their favored champion’s look and loadout. And while excellent builds exist that don’t depend on hours of farming, players are starting to look elsewhere for rewarding grinds.

The state of Marvel’s Avengers is an incredible shame. In spite of this, I don’t foresee the game being shut down or taken offline anytime soon. Square Enix will want to keep this game going as there’s too much potential for engagement and monetization to cut off a recoup of their investment in the Marvel property. Disney and Marvel on the other hand won’t appreciate this game shutting down and causing shame and damage to the Marvel Games meta-portfolio.

Marvel’s Avengers has potential. The fact that people can still feel compelled to play due to the satisfying combat and in spite of an overwhelming amount of negatives -- bugs, progression, content -- only speaks to how much more exciting it could be if the game was firing on most, if not all, cylinders. Many existing players seem to like the game – and its ultra-satisfying combat – enough to keep playing it, but imagine what it would be like if they absolutely LOVED it.

Crystal Dynamics has told us to expect the next major content update by the end of October, in the form of Taking AIM, a post-launch operation that will introduce Hawkeye and Kate Bishop as playable characters. It will be the first piece of content that advances the story from the conclusion of the main campaign. And while that’s incredibly exciting, it remains to be seen whether this content drop will address ongoing issues that a bevy of weekly patches have not.

Players hope that Marvel’s Avengers can pull off a No Man’s Sky. The massively hyped space exploration game disappointed people with failed promises when it launched in 2016, but over the years it has transformed into an entirely different game, invalidating early coverage, and drawing thousands of players back into its compelling universe. 

It remains to be seen how long players will have to wait for a similar transformation for Marvel’s Avengers, and how many lapsed players will return when it does.

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