Update: Marvel’s Avengers V1.3.3 Patch is now live! Some early quality-of-life fixes are readily apparent: Faster character traversal through bases like the Helicarrier and Ant Hill, cosmetic preview options in vendor stores, and even shortcut menus for each faction in existing hubs. These are great changes for QoL, but they're just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to other updates, including bug fixes and more content:
Patch 1.3.3 introduces Tachyon Rifts and SHIELD Substation Zero to the Avengers Initiative (starting 10/15) as well as addresses bugs, tuning, and adds several highly requested quality of life and playability improvements across both the Reassemble Campaign and throughout the Avengers Initiative. Below are the highlights of what is addressed in Patch 1.3.3.
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Patch 1.3.4 is already underway, which will include several quick match fixes and improvements, further reward tuning, and new UI options!
You can check out the full patch notes here or read a few of the highlights below:
- Remote faction terminals have been added to outposts, which allow collection of faction assignments and villain sector bounties without the need to visit each faction coordinator in person.
- Extended pickup radius for reward drops.
- The ability to preview cosmetic vendor items.
- Option to scale subtitle/closed caption text size.
- Closed Captions will no longer be automatically display in cinematics when subtitles are displayed.
- Movement speed increased in outposts when in Avengers Initiative
- AI companion improvements, including assistance when player needs to be revived.
- Improved Mega Hive rewards. They now are guaranteed to give two exclusive exotic gear items and an increased amounts of upgrade modules upon completion.
- Implemented a fix that will retroactively grant Iron Man's iconic outfit for players who previously lost it due to a bug.
New Content:
- SHIELD Substation Zero Outpost: SHIELD has opened Substation Zero to investigate new temporal anomalies that have begun forming across the world. A space that offers new narrative, characters, and content, you can find SHIELD Substation Zero in the Pacific Northwest on the WAR TABLE.
- Tachyon Rift Missions: You’ll investigate the temporal anomalies by taking on the new Tachyon Rift missions, which are the first place players can get Cosmic Gear. The Tachyon storm will damage players over time, but charges Heroic energy at an increased rate. With the “Meridian” modifier active, players can pass through Temporal Anomalies to extend the time you can spend within a Tachyon Rift. A late-game offering, Tachyon Rift Missions require 140 Power Level or higher superheroes to play. These missions are available once per day and rotate out daily.
Our previous write-up follow below:
Marvel's Avengers, the superhero smash-'em-up game from Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix, has become a daily play for me. But that doesn't mean it's for everyone. For casual players out there, the early hype surrounding the release might have been enough to check it out during August's Beta release, but even the hardcore players are starting to drift away from the relatively new title. That's a problem for a few reasons: First, with a dwindling player base, it's going to be hard for the game studios to greenlight additional updates in the months to come. Secondly, the compounding issue of fewer and fewer players is that online multiplayer matchmaking gets harder and harder to complete, giving players more of an excuse to bail. Crystal Dynamics hopes that the first major content update might turn things around.
Though Marvel's Avengers currently lacks enough content to keep the daily players and marathon streamers happy -- a tough task for any modern game developer to keep up with, honestly -- it seems that even casual players are opting for other titles over the superhero story. New content could change that. At the very least, a detailed and dated roadmap of content to come would give players something to look forward to, to plan for, and to re-embrace the grind in anticipation of what's ahead.
In a statement provided to Kotaku, Crystal Dynamics studio head Scot Amos teased new mission types coming, a new Outpost where a new storyline will kick off, and the anticipated arrival of Hawkeyes, Kate Bishop and Clint Barton. Here are some of the highlights:
To our players: every day we fight to make the best game possible for our community. 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.
New content arriving in the weeks ahead includes:
- "A totally new War Zone mission type called Tachyon Rifts"
- "A new Outpost that’s a jumping-off point for new story missions in the future"
- "AIM’s Cloning Lab", requiring "a coordinated high-level group of four players to beat with new top-end loot rewards for finishing it
As for the new character content:
- Kate Bishop arrives in "Operation: Taking AIM,"
- Double-feature "Operation" starring Clint Barton
The main Reassemble campaign's end is the launching point for the new Operations' story. That story will continue forward, introduce "new mysteries and villains, as well as new multi-player content." New content is also coming to the game in the months ahead, but to call that content reveal vague would be an understatement.
At least there's reassurance of the typical and expected continued "tuning and bug fixing to enhance the overall experience," and a focus on "issues and overall game balance, including loot distribution and quality of life features everyone is clamoring for to improve our day-to-day experience from accessibility to co-op communication tools to balancing the economy" as Amos puts it. These days, however, it's not enough to say, "We're working on it; please continue playing!" [My words, not Amos'.] You've got to keep the content coming, as difficult as it is.
Perhaps a tweaked version of a multiplayer game that isn't mission or story-dependent but allows players and streamers to go head-to-head, making their own clippable content as they go. Perhaps a race or a capture-the-flag game or something like a Gambit-style mini-game from Destiny could be a relatively simple, temporary fix. Maybe none of the above would work. But despite the current content issues of Marvel's Avengers, it's a game with tremendous upside and possibility; it just remains to be seen whether players will give it a chance and if the devs behind the title will reward them for doing so. Stay tuned!