What should have been an easy slam-dunk for videogame publisher Square Enix has turned into a nightmare. A game based on The Avengers should've been an easy sell, and Marvel's Avengers did initially perform well, but poor word-of-mouth, critical apathy, and declining player numbers turned the previously eagerly-awaited title into a bit of a joke.
Square Enix hopes to turn those player counts around with a string of Marvel's Avengers updates, such as the recently released Hawkeye DLC and the upcoming Black Panther. These are a good start, but there has to be a lot more Marvel's Avengers DLC updates to turn around the game's flagging fortunes.
Captain Marvel
There are many characters who would make excellent additions to the Marvel's Avengers roster, but perhaps none would generate the excitement and be as much a radical game-changer as Carole Danvers a.k.a. Captain Marvel. She's been teased already and definitely exists in the game universe, and players even know what she looks like thanks to an in-game poster. What makes the Captain Marvel DLC vital is that there are no other heroes in the game with her Superman-like power-set, which would completely transform the game and generate a lot of sorely-needed fan excitement.
DC Universe Online-Style Episodes
While DC Universe Online and Marvel's Avengers are vastly different games, they do share major similarities. Aside from being major online comic book games, players can go on story missions in a variety of locations, which may even end in a boss encounter with a recognizable villain. However, DC Universe Online has one major innovation that'd work well in Marvel's Avengers, which is the idea of contained story Episodes. These Episodes are unrelated to the main plot and are often based on major comic book events, so it would be great to see Avengers do these too.
Improved And Expanded Mission Types
Marvel's Avengers has a lot of fun qualities, but a part of the game that receives a lot of criticism is the variety of mission types. As an ongoing live-service game, Square Enix expects players to replay the missions constantly to get better loot and level up, but right now those missions can be very repetitive.
The same mission types keep coming up again and again with no variation, so if Square Enix wants to avoid players getting bored with Marvel's Avengers and ditching it there has to be an expanded range of mission types.
More Recognizable Villains
While fans continue to be excited about the introduction of Black Panther, Spider-Man, Hawkeye, and other playable heroes, all of which are necessary too, something that needs to happen in a Marvel's Avengers update is the inclusion of more named villains from the Marvel universe. At the moment, the only recognizable names in the game are MODOK (who's dead), Abomination, the upcoming Black Widow villain Taskmaster, and a brief cameo by Loki. Considering how many great Avengers villains there are in the Marvel universe, it's shocking how few there are in Marvel's Avengers.
Revamped Maps That Are Less Copy-Paste
One of the biggest problems with Marvel's Avengers is repetition. It's bad enough that the missions players encounter always tend to fall into very similar structures, particularly with there only being a handful of side-missions, the actual areas players visit often feel like they repeat too. Fans will encounter the same sort of hallways, two-floor laboratories, bunkers, and loot areas with predictable switches on every map. If Square Enix wants to save Marvel's Avengers it needs to cut down on repetition and revamp the maps so they feel less familiar.
The Fantastic Four
While the bare minimum fans expect when it comes to Marvel's Avengers DLC is new heroes, the game needs heroes that can completely revamp the experience for players, and one of the best decisions Square Enix could make is including the entire Fantastic Four family in an update - ahead of their eagerly-awaited MCU movie. Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch, and The Thing would add unique power-sets, they would be a natural four-person team that would completely change the Avengers experience, and they would bring with them the likes of Doctor Doom and Galactus.
Hail Hydra
Aside from only having a handful of recognizable big-name villains, one of the most disappointing parts of Marvel's Avengers is that players only ever fight against the forces of A.I.M. Furthermore, enemies mostly consist of robots, which can be unsatisfying to fight. The game needs other evil organizations for players to face off against, and there's no better choice for an antagonist than Hydra.
The opening to Avengers: Age of Ultron is one of the most spectacular battles in the MCU, and the fight between the Avengers and Hydra clearly influenced the fights in the game, so it would be great to actually face off against Hydra itself.
More Frequent Updates
When discussing the topic of Marvel's Avengers updates, one important point that needs to be raised is that there simply needs to be more of them. The game released over seven months ago and in that time the only two significant additions have been two Hawkeye characters and their corresponding story content. For a live-service game that's designed to keep people playing, that's not enough. If Square Enix truly wants to turn around the fortunes of Marvel's Avengers, it has to put out more frequent notable updates.
Seasons With Thanos-Like Threats
An idea that's proven popular in many online games is the idea of Seasons. In Seasons of games such as Fortnite, Apex Legends, or Fall Guys players can earn unique loot, face all-new challenges, or play on revamped (or brand new) maps for a limited amount of time. Marvel's Avengers really needs compelling reasons to keep fans playing and the introduction of Seasons might work well, especially if there is a fresh story with a powerful Marvel threat such as Thanos or Galactus to fight. If Fortnite used both characters to great success, so can Marvel itself.
The Spider-Verse
Possibly the biggest upset fans had regarding Marvel's Avengers was the pre-release announcement that Spider-Man, who is still arguably the most popular Marvel hero, would be exclusive to PS4/PS5 players - something that immediately alienated Xbox and PC fans. With the game's popularity shrinking, Square Enix now cannot afford to make a major character update exclusive to Sony, as the fan reaction would be devastating. The only way out would be to turn the Spider-Man update into a Spider-Verse update, with Peter Parker exclusive to Sony but the likes of Miles Morales, Gwen Stacy, and Miguel O'Hara multiplatform - along with any new areas and stories. This would give the game a huge shot in the arm and negate any bad press at the same time.