It's time for Marvel's Avengers to end. No, we're not talking about the Avengers who have provided us with entertainment and a rollercoaster of emotions in cinemas for a decade. Those Avengers are mostly alive and kicking, even if the original group has disbanded and made way for newer superheroes to take over the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).
We're talking about the action-adventure game that launched back in 2020, the one where all the heroes look like discount versions of their cinematic counterparts. In a few hours, developer Crystal Dynamics will discontinue support for Marvel's Avengers and the game will be removed from all digital stores after it turned out to be a commercial failure.
Marvel's Avengers is being discontinued just three years after launch
Marvel's Avengers had all the ingredients to be a hit. It included Kamala Khan, Captain America, Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, and Black Widow as playable characters in a campaign that follows the story of how the Avengers break up after failing to stop a deadly terrorist attack but eventually get back together to fight a bigger threat.
It also had the perfect release timing. Avengers: Endgame, the final part of the Infinity saga that started back in 2008 with the first Iron Man movie (or The Incredible Hulk, which is considered canon despite having a different actor playing Bruce Banner/Hulk), came out in 2019, so Marvel fans who had been starving for more Avengers action found it in the game.
The game sold pretty well in the beginning thanks to all the hype, but the repetitive and lackluster gameplay that couldn't properly simulate what it would be like to play as a superhero, a big focus on loot boxes and microtransactions, and a lack of interesting content outside of the single-player campaign all contributed to its downfall. The game added more popular characters, such as Spider-Man, Black Panther, and Hawkeye, and new missions and plots involving those heroes through downloadable content, but none of it was enough to keep gamers hooked.
It will be playable for everyone buying it before September 31
So, just three years later, Marvel's Avengers is exiting the marketplace. All online stores, like Steam on PC and the Xbox and PlayStation stores on consoles, will stop selling the game from September 31st. The game will continue to be playable in both single-player and multiplayer modes for existing owners, though, at least until publisher Square Enix decides it's not worth keeping the game's servers active.
Those who don't already own the game can buy it until the end of the day on September 30. It's discounted heavily (up to 90%) on all stores at the moment, so you might want to add it to your library while you can, especially if you want to play the single-player campaign, which is good enough for at least one playthrough.
Image credits: Marvel/Steam
