Marvel’s Avengers Is Shutting Down
Marvel's Avengers is shutting down all support and will be delisted from stores on September 30, 2023.
Two years following the lackluster release of Marvel’s Avengers, Crystal Dynamics decided to stop wasting effort on reviving the title and give it an end-of-life treatment. Starting September 30, 2023, the game will lose active development support from its developer and shut down any purchases within the game. And as recent gaming history has taught us, once a live service loses financial viability, it’s off to the scrapyard.
According to IGN, Crystal Dynamics announced its plans to stop any active development and support for Marvel’s Avengers past September 30 this year, a date at which the game will officially be removed from digital storefronts. All in-game purchases will be halted, the premium currency will be converted to other in-game resources, and there won’t be any new content added to the game. With that said, Marvel’s Avengers will remain playable, at least for a while, following the loss of support, allowing players to test out all the cosmetics they haven’t previously bought.
The game’s final content drop is scheduled for March 31, 2023, after which all its premium cosmetics will be made available to all players entirely free of charge. These items were previously available from the in-game shop and available for purchase with real money and premium currency. Admittedly, most of those cosmetics infuriated players, as they really reflected Crystal Dynamics’ lack of enthusiasm regarding Marvel’s Avengers. Yet, Crystal Dynamics decided to make these available to the gaming community, likely as a parting gift before the game is finally pulled off life support.
Games either make it or don’t; game making isn’t an abstract science, as there’s an exact recipe to what makes the game successful. However, many games have fallen in recent years, with the number one game-killer being the developer and publisher’s greed. Sure, the gaming industry exists solely to provide entertainment for gamers and make a profit for developers and publishers, but recent gaming history has shown that many games are released outright broken due to their reliance on premium purchases and microtransactions.
In fact, Marvel’s Avengers is a direct result of money-grabbing practices. Square Enix took a popular IP and slapped its name across a rather mediocre and technically challenged game in hopes of gaining profit from its ties to the IP alone. Luckily, gamers are a very tough and sometimes (unfortunately very toxic) crowd. The lack of innovation in Marvel’s Avengers, a rather short story, and numerous technical issues have plagued the game from its very launch, and what appeared to be a successful release soon caved under the weight of its developer/publisher’s greed.
For more context, gamers abandoned the game, disappointed at the title that had so much potential but simply never lived up to it due to the aforementioned greed. Crystal Dynamics tried rectifying the situation by releasing a ton of content that would expand the game’s narrative further, but the damage had been done, and Marvel’s Avengers never recuperated its player base as Cyberpunk 2077 did. Square Enix should’ve taken a page from CD Projekt RED’s book, and instead of pumping out cosmetics, they should’ve fixed the game properly.
The final content drop for Marvel’s Avengers is scheduled for March 31, 2023, followed by delisting from digital storefronts scheduled for September 30, 2023.
