Marvel's Avengers dev promises updates as interest fades, player numbers dwindle
"We are confident we'll see players return."
Marvel's Avengers developer Crystal Dynamics has said it is working on new updates for the game "as fast as we safely can" in a bid to reignite waning player interest.
Yesterday a Forbes report highlighted SteamCharts numbers suggesting the game's PC audience had slumped to between 1000-2000 people a month after launch - low enough for the game to begin experiencing matchmaking issues.
In response, Crystal Dynamics boss Scot Amos issued a lengthy statement to Kotaku on the studio's plans for the game in the near-term future, and said he is confident players will "return" to the game on PC, as well as on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
"To our players: every day we fight to make the best game possible for our community," Amos said. "We have a great community management team at Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix who funnel all of your concerns, suggestions, and feedback to the development team daily. We are listening. We are making fixes, improvements, and additions as fast as we safely can to make Marvel's Avengers the game we all aspire it to be."
Two new characters are on the horizon, Amos said - the previously announced Kate Bishop and Clint Barton versions of Hawkeye - alongside a "new War Zone mission type called Tachyon Rifts, a new Outpost that's a jumping off point for new story missions in the future, and AIM's Cloning Lab, which requires a coordinated high-level group of four players to beat with new top-end loot rewards".
More information on the timing for these additions will arrive in a blog post next week.
"We are confident that we'll see PC players (as well as those on Xbox One and PlayStation 4) return to the game as we add exciting new late-game content and demonstrate that we continue to be focused on improving the game," Amos concluded.
A datamined list of upcoming Marvel's Avengers characters suggested at least a dozen more heroes are planned for the future - as well as the infamous PlayStation-exclusive Spider-Man. But will it be enough to turn the game's fortunes around?
On launch, Eurogamer praised Marvel's Avengers for its enjoyable story campaign - but questioned whether the game's design had longterm sticking power. It is, after all, designed to live on as a live service game for the foreseeable future.
"As a live-service game, you can expect lots of tweaks and changes as the weeks morph into months, but having magpied so much from those kinds of games it's left with little identity of its own," Vikki Blake wrote in Eurogamer's Marvel's Avengers review. "Despite the promise of its campaign, its endearing cast and impressive voice work, Marvel's Avengers is an unoriginal and uninspired affair that falls sadly short of what it could have been - what it should have been."