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Marvel’s Avengers to be delisted in September as support winds down

Crystal Dynamics has confirmed that it will stop working on Marvel’s Avengers, with the final significant update coming March 31 before official customer support ends on September 30.

In a blog post on the game’s website, Crystal Dynamics says that the “decision was made in conjunction with our partners that now was the right time to make this change,” and that “no new stories, features, or Heroes will be added to the game” going forward. It added that Spider-Man will remain a PlayStation exclusive character. Thankfully, the post also confirms that both single-player and multiplayer will still be available to play in Marvel’s Avengers after September 30. Update 2.8, which releases on March 31, will disable the purchase of Credits and convert remaining Credit balances into in-game resources for players alongside some other balance updates. There will be no refunds to players who have spent money on the game, though. 

The credit balance conversion table for Marvel's Avengers final update.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

As is to be expected with an update like this, the developers are also making content previously only available behind a paywall free to players. That means all Marketplace, Challenge Card, and Shipment cosmetics will be free for players to redeem after March 31. If you haven’t picked Marvel’s Avengers up yet, you’ll need to do so by September 30, as it will be removed from digital storefronts then. 

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Marvel’s Avengers was just never able to find its footing despite its use of a great IP. Hyped up as the next great live service game ahead of its release, the game was plagued with problems upon its launch in September 2020, and post-launch support has been slow and delay-filled. Rumors suggest that the team working on this game has only gotten smaller and smaller as Crystal Dynamics has moved on to projects like Tomb Raider and Perfect Dark, so the game never really had a chance to come back from a rocky launch like Destiny or No Man’s Sky did.

Ironically, even this closure announcement didn’t go smoothly, as the entire website for Marvel’s Avengers went down when Crystal Dynamics tweeted a link to the news at 5:30 p.m. ET today. A follow-up tweet from the game’s account says “high traffic” caused those issues. 

Marvel’s Avengers is available now for PC, PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X

Tomas Franzese
As a Gaming Staff Writer on Digital Trends, Tomas Franzese reports on and reviews the latest releases and exciting…
Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered gets DualSense features, DLSS support on PC
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Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered is less than a month away from swinging to PC, and Sony has revealed some new features on the PlayStation Blog that players will experience when they get the game. Two of the port's most notable features are its PlayStation DualSense integration and Nvidia DLSS support.

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Marvel’s Avengers Mighty Thor update lets me down for the last time
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I have stuck with Marvel's Avengers through thick and thin. I was hyped for the game before it was released, stayed with the game through its rocky post-launch window, and have returned for weeks on end after every hero release. Even for me, though, the wait between Spider-Man and Jane Foster's Mighty Thor was rough. That gap between heroes was about seven months, and the only significant updates between then and now have been a couple of missions and some quality of life changes, most of which were in a March update that didn't work on PS5 for over a day.
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Because of this dearth of updates, I eagerly jumped back in when Jane Foster's Mighty Thor was added on June 28. While I can clearly see how Marvel's Avengers has improved since September 2020 and still think there is a really fun action game at its core, I can no longer forgive it for failing me as a live service game. Like every update of Marvel's Avengers, Jane Foster's addition comes with its own set of problems, and I just don't have the faith that the developer can turn things around anymore.
You won't behold in breathless wonder
Thor is the Marvel's Avengers character I’ve probably played the least of, which did help make Jane Foster's Mighty Thor feel a bit fresh to me. Still, there's no denying that her update feels a bit light compared to previous hero drops, and the sentiment among the player base is that she's too similar to the version of Thor that's been available since launch.
The hero update is missing basic features like a training room, loading screen animation, or even more substantial in-game cutscenes that even the controversial Spider-Man update had. This version of Jane Foster was also randomly teleported over from another universe and it doesn't come with much story content, which plays further into the feeling of her being shoehorned in.
That’s disappointing, as Zehra Fazal gives a good performance and the audio logs feature some strong writing as you learn about her alternate timeline and why she feels empowered by taking on the Mighty Thor mantle. The narrative is one place where Marvel’s Avengers still shines but has never really been able to put enough focus on. It appears that's something no update will change. Her challenge card also doesn't contain anything too special either, so there's not much pushing me to spend money on her or to engage with the game in the long term in order to unlock more items. 

The lack of new content puts a lot of pressure on how Jane Foster's Mighty Thor plays, but this will probably be a bit of a letdown for hardcore players, especially those who frequently use Thor. Thor and Jane share a lot of abilities and even some takedowns. The biggest differences are that Jane has a little more range than Thor; she uses All Mother's Blessing instead of the Odinforce to counter and charge attacks. Plus, her Ultimate Heroic Ability The All-Weapons is more similar to Hawkeye's Ultimate, as Mjolnir flies around on its own and hits several enemies.
Because The All-Weapon is a fun Ultimate ability to use and I tend to prefer ranged characters in Marvel's Avengers, I do actually like playing Jane a little bit more than Thor. I’m okay with "echo characters" in games that try to have large rosters, but when it’s the game’s only new character in seven months (10 months if you aren’t on PlayStation), then a character that mostly feels like a clone and doesn’t bring any substantial story mission content is a going to be a disappointment.
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Lara Croft runs from a crashing plane in Tomb Raider.

Square Enix has offloaded its North American operations as it announced the sale of Crystal Dynamics, Eidos Montreal, and Square Enix Montreal to Embracer Group today. The deal also nets Embracer Group over 50 notable franchises such as Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Thief, and Legacy of Kain.
Crystal Dynamics is best known for its work on the Tomb Raider franchise, though it recently released the tumultuous live service Marvel's Avengers game.  Eidos Montreal is behind series like Deus Ex and recently garnered critical acclaim following the release of Guardians of the Galaxy. Square Enix Montreal is a mobile-focused studio that makes games like Lara Croft GO and Hitman Sniper. 

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