Square Enix’s Marvel Avengers had all the makings for a successful game. So what went wrong?
Every time I see Marvel Avengers pop up in my timeline, I think to myself “damm, what a shame“! Marvel Avengers came at the height of the MCU movie’s conclusion. The hype was there and the demand for a Marvel-related game steadily increased, and Square Enix was looking to capitalize on it. And then we got Marvel Avengers the game. Right out of the gate it was scrutinized for its visual representation of the cast. The scrutiny didn’t stop there. After that, we learned that it was going to be a live-service game, which further disinterested the marvel video game community, and when the microtransactions were revealed, it sealed the game’s faith forever. This is a shame because the game played really well and was fun to learn all the available characters. This brings me to the gameplay.
Even if you could ignore the microtransaction and visuals, the game aside from a few missions, had nothing to do end game. At best you could get a good 10 hours before you’ve experienced everything the game at to offer, and that was another problem. For a live-service game, there wasn’t much to do. A lack of mission variety and areas to explore made the game that much less desirable. Factoring the limited characters available at launch, if your favorite hero wasn’t available, you’d have even less of an interest to pick up the game. I hope that this is a learning experience for not only Square Enix, but for anyone looking to make a game out of a poplar IP, it never translates well. In Square Enix’s case, they had the opportunity to see as Marvel games have been done before and successfully but greed and low passion killed any chance for success.
So can Marvel Avengers be saved? Sure, but they’re not going like my suggestion. One of the ways Square Enix could save this game is by going free-to-play, while still offering some form of premium option. Coupled with quarterly releases of heroes, maps, and missions could revitalize interest in this game. That would be my suggestion.
