Update 21/1/23: Following yesterday’s reports of the impending death of Marvel’s Avengers, developer Crystal Dynamics has made it official, confirming that the game’s final update will arrive on March 31st of this year and end on September 30th.
Single-player and multiplayer elements of Marvel’s Avengers will remain available when support ends in September, Crystal Dynamics explained in a blog post, but last November’s 2.7 update, which introduced The Winter Soldier, is now confirmed to release the game’s final content, and March’s 2.8 update is the final one. Bring balance.
Additionally, there are no new cosmetics coming to Marvel’s Avengers – making the recent, much-loved helmet-less cosmetic the end of the game – and the paid marketplace will close in September when development officially ends.
As of March 31st, premium in-game credits will no longer be purchasable, and players’ remaining credit balances will be converted to in-game resources, as shown below.
Finally, as a “show of our appreciation” to the game’s community, all marketplace, challenge cards, and shipment cosmetics — including outfits, takedowns, emotes, and nameplates — will be made free to all players “after” March 31st.
Original story 20/1/23: Crystal Dynamics is reportedly preparing to announce the end of development on its embattled live-service superhero action-adventure Marvel’s Avengers, official news says “as early as next week”.
It’s reliable, according to Marvel’s Avengers leaker Miller Ross, who cited a Crystal Dynamics source in a story for Explorator. The studio initially wanted to continue supporting the game through the latter half of 2023, but recent events surrounding lead developer Brian Wagner — who is now known to have left the company after the fact gone punish publicly For his past offensive tweets – hastened the project’s demise
Ross’ sources say that Wagoner will not be replaced after his departure, leaving only a “small team” of developers still working on Marvel’s Avengers, most of whom are already splitting their time with other Crystal Dynamics projects, including Amazon’s Tomb Raider.
As part of a planned “exit strategy” following the official news of the death of Marvel’s Avengers, Crystal Dynamics will reportedly release several key system changes, including the removal of artificial time-gating and an overhaul of cosmetic microtransactions. Additionally, a final scheduled update will supposedly address the balance of movement across the current superhero roster in response to complaints that older heroes feel “more sluggish” than newer additions.
Marvel’s Avengers will reportedly remain on sale digitally until “at least September,” “in an effort to keep the game playable for existing owners as long as possible.”
Current and former employees contacted for Ross’s report described Marvel’s Avengers project as a “fountain of potential brought to its knees by incompetent studio management and the Marvel Games bureaucracy” with unreleased content – which now will never see the light of day – with a free-roaming boss. -based bounty mode known as Patrol Mode, plus additional heroes She-Hulk and Captain Marvel.
The most recent major update to Marvel’s Avengers arrived in November, adding Bucky Barnes – AKA the Winter Soldier – to the superhero line-up. Since then, Crystal Dynamics’ decision to sell the helmet-less version of the existing cosmetic for $14 has dampened community goodwill.