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Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can. Can he save Marvel's Avengers? No, I'm afraid it's much too late for all that. Look, I don't want to kick Avengers when it's down, and it's been down ever since it arrived. Especially not after this week where Square Enix seemed to throw developer Crystal Dynamics under the bus by suggesting it probably wasn't the right development team for the job. That's especially weird because it felt, from the impressive story mode and the far less cohesive GaaS elements, like CD never wanted to make this sort of Avengers game in the first place - it would have preferred to make something like Eidos-Montreal did with Guardians of the Galaxy. In any case, a GaaS is what we got, and 14 months after launch, Spider-Man isn't going to save it.
The game was pretty poor at launch. The ten hour campaign was enjoyable enough, but we all knew Cap wasn't dead, the characters felt like MCU knock-offs, and balance was taken way too far, rendering some heroes limp and lifeless versions of their true power. Anthem was a better Iron Man game than Avengers, and Thor felt less like the God of Thunder and more like the God of Double-A Batteries. It didn't really know what to do with itself, and while Kate Bishop was a lively addition to the game, following up one Hawkeye with another, more boring Hawkeye just feels stupid.
It also missed several tricks. While it was supposed to distance itself from the MCU, the character designs and personalities were a clear... let's be generous and say ‘homage’. So why, when WandaVision was the biggest show on television at the start of the year, was there no Wanda tie-in? Shang-Chi's record breaking box office was missed, as was anything connected to Loki or Falcon when they were pumping out weekly episodes. Even Black Widow, a character already in the game, got nothing but some skins to acknowledge her final flick in the MCU canon, and her passing of the torch to Yelena. I understand crafting new characters like this would have been difficult given the development pipeline, but crossover quests, skins, or seasonal updates would have been something. Instead we got almost nothing.
It hasn't been all bad. Kate Bishop seemed like the start of the game's revival, even if a Final Fantasy 14 arc was always unlikely. The lack of enthusiasm for Clint sent everything back to square one, but then the meaty War for Wakanda expansion pack, complete with Christopher Judge as Black Panther, built up more momentum. The arrival of Avengers on Game Pass shores also meant people could pick it up without a huge cash outlay, meaning casually interested players might help get the game back on its feet.
Unfortunately, hand in hand with this was a pay-to-win XP boost - something the devs had previously promised would not be added to the game. This has since been rather rapidly walked back, but for the few dedicated fans who have stuck around, it's a bit of a kick in the teeth. The game is a wash, at this point. You either take the hit of making it free-to-play in the hope of sustaining interest long term, you take the hit of shutting it down, or you keep taking the hits of having no one play your game with a premium price tag. There is no way to wriggle out of this without getting hit, and going the freemium route, after promising you never would, seems to be an attempt at that - although thanks to a mighty backlash, they ended up taking a hit anyway.
But here's Spider-Man to save the day. He's Marvel's most popular superhero - more than 100 million clear in comic sales of his closest competitor - and he's free. That's surely going to make everything right, right? Right...? Wrong. Spider-Man is free, but he's only on PlayStation. Marvel's Avengers is 'free', but only on Game Pass. You can buy the game on PlayStation and play as Spider-Man, but at this point, you either a) aren't going to or b) already own the game and probably won't go back. I know it's because of Sony licensing issues, but that doesn't make it any better for Johnny O'Xboxplayer. Right when Avengers has a relative groundswell of newcomers being funnelled in through Game Pass, it decided to implement pay-to-win and add the best superhero to a different console. It feels like Marvel's Avengers is an elaborate Springtime for Hitler at this point.
Spider-Man might never have saved Marvel's Avengers. Maybe it was doomed from the start. But after earning fan scorn for pay-to-win mechanics and being metaphorically wedgied by Square Enix, adding your best character yet but specifically excluding all the new players you've got just feels like deliberate sabotage. Maybe we should put this one to bed and let CD make the Marvel game it actually wants to make, yeah?