Update at 6PM (ET), January 20, 2023: This rumor has now been officially confirmed by Crystal Dynamics.
In short, digital sales of the game and developmental support will discontinue on September 30, 2023. The final update (Update 2.8) coming March 31, 2023 will be the last content update. The in-game cosmetic Marketplace will be turned off. With Update 2.8, Credits will no longer be purchasable and existing balances will be converted to in-game resources.
On March 31, every single piece of cosmetic content will be made available to everyone for free. This includes Outfits, Takedowns, Emotes, Nameplates, Challenge Cards, and Shipments. All you need to do is own a copy of the game.
While online multiplayer should continue to function for a while still, they cannot guarantee that it will remain available forever.
There may be a bugfix patch or more after Update 2.8 releases on March 31 and before September 30, but nothing is promised.
Crystal Dynamics did provide a chart showing what your Credits will convert to when Update 2.8 goes live.
Original story: Last December, a report put out by eXputer said that there were plans to sunset Marvel's Avengers at some point in 2023. Since that initial report, it seems as though those plans have been sped up a bit, with the end of active development possibly coming as early as next week.
The latest from eXputer cites a number of anonymous sources within Marvel's Avengers studio Crystal Dynamics. These sources say that there were plans to continue support for Marvel's Avengers through to the second half of 2023. However, those plans were sped up considerably after lead developer Brian Waggoner was let go from the company following the discovery of several racist tweets he posted.
At Crystal Dynamics, there were no plans to fill the vacant spot that Waggoner once occupied. Furthermore, the team working on Marvel's Avengers was already shrinking considerably as most of the team already shifted on to other studio projects. The members still working on Avengers are expected to be moved over to the new Tomb Raider development underway at Crystal Dynamics. That new Tomb Raider game is reportedly "well into full-scale development" and is also reportedly "the subject of mounting pressure in the lead-up to a reveal later this year."
With the loss of Waggoner and the already small team, the announcement that Marvel's Avengers is ceasing development could come as early as next week. This is according to sources speaking with eXputer.
The end of Avengers will come with several changes to some of the game's systems. There will reportedly be a removal of the artificial time gating and an overhaul to the available cosmetic microtransactions. The game will continue to be purchasable at least through September and should still be playable for existing owners "as long as possible."
Barring any future major bug fixes, the final regularly scheduled update for the game will offer an upgrade to player traversal. This traversal update will make "sluggish" characters like the Hulk feel a bit less sluggish when moving around, especially when compared to more agile characters. After that, it's essentially all she wrote for Marvel's Avengers.
eXputer's report also notes that there will be a bunch of scrapped content that was in various stages of development. Some of this content that won't be released include something called "Patrol Mode." This was a free-roam mode set in the game's largest map that would let players accept bounties on bosses to face off against them in new encounters and earn various rewards.
The Patrol Mode update would have also reportedly included a new "join-in-progress" feature. This would have allowed players to join fireteams that were already in the middle of a mission without any interruption.
A battle against Ultron was also reportedly in the cards. Several playable characters were also supposedly coming, including She-Hulk and Captain Marvel. She-Hulk was leaked back in July 2022 when TechniqTV, in a co-stream with then still employed Waggoner, let slip that his acting coach is the voice of She-Hulk in Marvel's Avengers.
Former and current developers speaking with eXputer had high praise for their co-workers. They also say that these co-workers held "a fountain of potential" that were "kneecapped by inept studio management and Marvel Games bureaucracy."
