Square Enix could be writing an obituary for Marvel’s Avengers in the near future if drastic steps aren’t taken to right the ship, and soon.
If you haven’t been following recent goings-on concerning Crystal Dynamics’ beleaguered action-adventure title (that’s sort of the problem), you’re probably in the majority. Despite huge pre-release excitement surrounding Marvel’s crack at taking on the live service model, the novelty of playing as iconic characters such as Iron Man and Black Widow has seemingly worn off, almost certainly due, in part, to repetitive gameplay and a general lack of depth to be found.
Not exactly the most ideal outcome, then, and while Crystal has repeatedly outlined that all post-launch content will arrive free of charge, many have already grown tired of waiting and moved on to other games. Delays for this first batch of DLC, as well as ports for Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 being pushed back, have only compounded these issues further, leading to the current sorry state of affairs.
According to new data shared by GameByte, concurrent players on PC dipped to just 1,190 over the weekend, representing a roughly 96% drop in activity. To put that figure into further perspective, average online players in November amounted to 752 – a worryingly small number considering Marvel’s Avengers‘ future ultimately lives or dies on player retention and engagement.
The primary concern, then, is that Square will find itself with two options going forward. Either pull the plug and accept the reported $60 million loss incurred so far, or continue sinking money into what was supposed to be one of the publisher’s biggest releases of 2020 in the hopes that player numbers will bounce back. We’ll just have to wait and see what transpires, but suffice it to say, the future looks bleak indeed.
