Marvel’s Avengers Isn’t Going Free-to-Play Anytime Soon

After a rocky launch that’s caused fan upset and commercial issues, many have wondered whether Marvel’s Avengers would pivot to a free-to-play model, in order to bring new players in – but developer Crystal Dynamics has rejected the idea.In an interview about the game’s 2021 roadmap, we asked Crystal Dynamics head of studio Scot Amos whether he had considered a free-to-play model – his answer was clear: “For us, the model we have is the model we stick with.”

Amos repeatedly pointed to how the game’s current model best serves its players by offering them all of its playable content for a single upfront cost. “Look, you buy in once, you get into our theme park, as it were, and look at all these rides you can take,” he explained. “And all the rides are part of that, and we’re continually adding more content at no additional cost.” Amos added that the roadmap of new content should make that even more appealing.

Amos also claimed that some players aren’t understanding the full extent of the game’s existing content: “There’s something kind of interesting for us that, at the end of the campaign there’s a mission called Reigning Supreme, and the number of people who’ve actually played it but they don’t understand what it is, like, ‘Oh this looks like a really long mission’. It is, because it unlocks all this other content.

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“There’s a bunch of people that we have been onboarding saying, ‘No it’s worth playing that because it shows you the Vaults, and Caches, and coordinates and all this other stuff that you just haven’t seen yet.’ So there’s a massive amount of content in here already.”

As for changes that are coming, the 2021 roadmap includes the addition of Black Panther, a Wakanda campaign, a Black Widow movie tie-in, and the ability to play multiple versions of the same character. It doesn’t include the promised Spider-Man, who won’t be coming before summer 2021 at the very earliest.

Today sees the release of the game’s second new hero, Hawkeye, alongside the Future Imperfect campaign, and next-gen versions of the game. Make sure to check out everything announced and revealed at the Spring 2021 Square Enix Presents.

Joe Skrebels is IGN’s Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.