Another Avenger bites the dust

 Speaking of departures

Didn't we just talk about this? Yes I'm pretty sure we just went over the tribulations and confusions that a studio has to put up with whenever a head of a project turns around and goes bye bye to his company, even if it isn't explicitly related to the game in question. Yet here we do have the absolute opposite of the spectrum, I have to admit. A situation where the game and it's performance are so out there, that one almost feels like they're failing to properly analyse the situation unless they factor in the video game in the middle here. You just have to look around at everything that's happening around you, put yourself in those shoes if you need to, and ask "Is this the choice that makes any sense under healthy circumstances, or does it perhaps serve a warning for something deeper?" And I'll just throw in my 2 cents by saying, it's probably the latter. if I had any financial stake in the world of Avengers I would not have just let that game's creative director up and leave with the state of the game right now.

Of course, in the world of creating live services, one must familiarise themselves with the idea that there are two stages of development; the traditional stage wherein the game is conceived, constructed and polished (Even though sometimes it feels that latter step is dodged entirely) and the next stage where the main team is pulled back so a side team can set into keeping the game's lights on for as long as possible. The Main team simply can't be wrapped up on something like that otherwise they'd be sacrificing their ability to work on other projects and make new games. Maybe Bungie can, and has to, make that sacrifice given that Destiny is a series they've happy sunk more than 1 billion into; but Crystal Dynamics has places to go, series' to maintain, they can't be wrapped up like that. So in that light, months after launch, a creative director saying his goodbyes and returning to his old company isn't exactly world changing. But, again, in the illogical world of 'optics' you have to admit that this looks bad.

Because love it or hate it, and I have seen people sit on just about every vertex of this fence, Square Enix's Avengers is not the mega hit that it should have been and arguably isn't even in a stable position right now. Now truthfully that is a very bold claim to make for someone who doesn't have access to any of Square's internal figures, but speaking as someone who has intently watched these sort of industries and communities ebb and flow everyday as my passtime; nothing I'm seeing represents this game is going anyway in the right direction. Player figures are currently the highest they've been in weeks right now, and that means they just broken the 4 figure mark, (that's on Steam chart tracker) which is simply fantastic numbers for a single player indie game, and decent figures for an indie multiplayer game; but the game we're talking about is neither. I have to wonder at this point how much of a return on investment this game even was if these are the numbers it's pulling in during the return of Marvel to the entertainment screen. (Small screen, but still) You just know that Marvel must have fleeced Square Enix on the licencing agreement, so those are some sales figures I'd really want to see leaked some day soon. (I only turn on my voyeur when we're talking corporate machinations)

For our Creative Director to up and leave right now, likely opening the slot for someone else, it just says one clear message to the community; we have no more creative ideas with this project. Okay I'm joking, but there is a real fear of leadership change during moments of creative crisis and I'd argue that Avengers has pretty much been in something of a crisis-state since launch. Getting a revolving door of executive is how a game enters development hell, or for a live service such as this one, it's how a game can find itself being overwhelmed and eventually abandoned; first by fans, next by the investors and finally by the developers. (Because lets be honest, all 15 Anthem fans out there, that game's fate was very much decided by the gaming public first.) Avengers needs to turn things around in a big and public manner if they want to become the market contender that you'd imagine an Avengers video game to be, and watching key team members dust in front of us isn't going to make that journey any more feasible.

But that doesn't mean everything is shaping up terrible for Avengers right now. There are still some slight good things going the game's way nowadays. For example, I just said how the user base is up, well that's because of the new Tachyon anomaly event which solves one of Avenger's biggest issues: the fact that you can only play when every player picks a different Hero. With this event, you can play multiples of whatever hero you want to because of Tachyons and timetravel or something, don't think about it too hard. Unfortunately this is only a limited event and so it going to get reversed imminently, but it still managed to bring a few people back and I bet this will be an event they come back to often. (it would be silly not to) Additionally, leaks and sly comments have painted the impression that the game is soon going to receive MCU based outfits; so now you can make your team of generic nobodies look like high quality cosplayers. (The new costumes do look good, I will say)

However I've just got to step back and look at the big picture to get the sense that something is off with this game, not just with what it currently is, but with what it hopes to be down the line. Because even looking at this in the long haul I'm not seeing that one dream for the fanbase to latch onto and defend to their dying breath. The usual way that these live services works out is that the launch is weak, (almost always) but then the dev team pulls some bull out of their closet about '2.0' or some magic fiction fix-all juice for the fans to slap each other on the back and say "Hey, it's not all bad." Avengers doesn't have that, the biggest upcoming event is Black Panther, and if the 'Future Imperfect' content is any indication of what to expect, that will last fans maybe a week of play before it gets boring at the most. (Even Fallout 76 Wastelanders at least lasted me a month and a bit) 

In fact, I'm not even sure what an Avengers 2.0 will look like, as it seems just the basic concept of this game is incompatible with the idea of substantial content drops without insane amounts of work going behind it. Could the team work on an amazing campaign to supplement the base game, complete with cleverly rendered side-mission locations that don't feel generic, new enemy archetypes that encourage new modes of play and a roster of team members that actually have to cooperate to win fights? I don't see why not, except for that they'd need a team the size of the development staff and about another 2 years to cook said-game. Both of which Avengers probably doesn't have to hand. So then what will become the moby dick of Avengers? I've honestly no idea,

In the perfect world, with the perfect amount of resource and time, Avengers would have made for a great dedicated action adventure video game, maybe with co-op, but definitely with a kick-ass and complete campaign. Instead it feels like the game has been roughly dragged and stuffed into an ill fitting formula that's doomed to slowly wither as everyone moves to the countless alternatives that make more sense. As much as I bemoan it, I can't rag on this Creative Director for going back to working for Naughty Dog, because they at least know how to execute a game that feels comfortable in it's own skin. But, as I always say, the Avengers name is strong; and if those guys can survive alien invasions, reality manipulations and, most impressively of all, franchise fatigue; who's to say they can't overcome this shoddy launch/support/future? Actually, when I put it like that I get even less confident; still, hope I'm wrong.