Update: Crystal Dynamics put out a post confirming most of the report. The game will be getting its final 2.8 patch on March 31, 2023. It will no longer receive new content after that. Official support will end on September 30, 2023. Find more details in our story here.
Marvel’s Avengers has limped along since its rough launch in August 2020 with a seemingly never-ending stream of controversies. However, it seems as though those controversies will start winding down, as a new report alleges that Crystal Dynamics is going to imminently announce that it is moving on from its tepidly received comic book game.
Exputer’s newest report, which builds on its report from December 2022, comes from Miller Ross, a noted Marvel’s Avengers leaker and dataminer that has prematurely uncovered countless skins in the game and even confirmed Black Panther’s voice actor and Bucky Barnes’ inclusion before they were officially announced. The aforementioned December report stated that the studio was planning to cease support in the latter half of 2023, but those plans have been sped up with the departure of Lead Developer Brian Waggoner who left after some of his offensive tweets resurfaced.
Ross’ sources said that Waggoner was not being replaced and that the developers on Marvel’s Avengers will now just be moved to the new Tomb Raider game, which is “the subject of mounting pressure in the lead-up to a reveal later this year.” The upcoming Tomb Raider was announced in April 2022 and will be published by Amazon Games.
The announcement revealing that Crystal Dynamics is moving on from Marvel’s Avengers is reportedly coming as early as next week, but it doesn’t seem like there’s a solid date yet. It is said that the announcement will come with changes to the title’s cosmetic microtransactions and the removal of its artificial time gating. Marvel’s Avengers will also be on digital storefronts until “at least September” and the team is trying to ensure that the title stays playable for existing owners “as long as possible.” Marvel games are notorious for being delisted, too, as sites like Delisted Games show rather plainly.
The final patch is also supposed to overhaul player traversal and make some of its heroes like Captain America and Hulk more nimble. It’s unclear when this patch would come out, as the report did not state when support would stop.
This also means that a ton of content that was in development will not make its way to the game. The report notes that this includes a free-roaming mode on a huge map where players could accept bounties and complete objectives, a feature that let users seamlessly join in-progress games, a story arc starring Ultron, and several playable characters.
She-Hulk, Captain Marvel, Shuri, and Ironheart were all reportedly part of this unreleased roster. Voice lines referencing each hero even leaked out, lending credence to their eventual inclusion. She-Hulk was mentioned several times, as Ross even reported that she was coming to the game. She-Hulk was apparently being developed mostly by external teams until late 2021, but was shelved when Crystal Dynamics brought all of the game’s development under its own roof. It is said that Crystal Dynamics intended to continue working on the green lawyer, but that did not happen.
The report also noted that current and former developers spoke highly of their co-workers, but said the game was a “fountain of potential” that was “kneecapped by inept studio management and Marvel Games bureaucracy.” Crystal Dynamics has not commented on the story.