Marvel’s Avengers is Already Dying on PC And Still Doesn’t Have Crossplay

Less than two months after launch, Marvel’s Avengers on PC has been bleeding players, and the current population can’t support the game’s complex web of matchmaking-based activities. Don’t be surprised if this sounds familiar, as it’s almost a carbon copy of the situation BioWare and EA’s Anthem dealt with months after its launch early in 2019. Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics have paired an entertaining single-player campaign with a multiplayer suite that has players building out their characters for content on the horizon. However, as with Anthem, problems with launch have caused many to drop out of the loop, which could tank the game’s future plans before they even get started.

Like other loot-based games of late, Marvel’s Avengers has a host of missions where players can go it alone with AI companions, go in with friends, or matchmake with strangers. For solo players or those in groups of less than four, matchmaking with like-minded heroes is ideal, but the setup of the game makes this difficult when the player base is on the lower end of the spectrum. Each mission acts as its own matchmaking playlist, so players could all be sitting in empty lobbies for different missions. In addition, each player has to choose a different hero, and players can’t join missions in progress.

All this has led to a less than ideal experience for PC users of Marvel’s Avengers. As noted by player tracker site SteamCharts, Square Enix’s superhero game is now averaging between 1,000 and 2,000 players on any given day, a significant drop off from the peak of 28,000 players at launch. At this current population level, wait times for missions have been reported to be upwards of a half an hour if players want to go in with a full team.

PC players aren’t the only ones reporting long wait times. Players on PlayStation 4 and Xbox aren’t sitting around a half-hour, but there’s still a significant wait time in lobbies before players start showing up. Even then, it’s hard to get a full crew of four together without bringing friends along for the ride. Marvel’s Avengers also released on Google Stadia, a platform that has consistently had trouble attracting an audience to its multiplayer titles without the help of crossplay. Surprisingly, despite its online focus, Marvel’s Avengers does not support crossplay at this time, and adding such a feature would likely solve population issues across the board for those who do want to play.

However, it seems that the number of people excited for the future of Marvel’s Avengers is waning. The game has not released any significant content updates since launch, and there seems to be a focus on bug fixing rather than getting new heroes or new events into the existing product. It’s a hard year for everyone, but slow updates in service games can be devastating to their long term success. With plans of a next-gen launch and PlayStation console exclusive Spider-Man still to come, one hopes that the core audience is still there waiting before these events come to pass.

Marvel’s Avengers is out now on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC and Google Stadia. A next-gen version on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X is coming at each console’s launch

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