After months of content delays, glitches, and a lack of players, things were finally starting to look up for Marvel's Avengers. The game's current-gen update is set to release on March 18, adding improved visuals for Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5, new story content, and a new playable character, Hawkeye, who will be free for all players. While free content is great, the next Marvel's Avengers update will also change the way leveling works, hurting the game more than the new content can hope to help it.
Marvel's Avengers has been plagued by problems since launch, but under the surface, there is a decent game to be found. The game's story campaign works well and delivers some great moments for characters like Kamala Khan, Captain America, Hulk, and Iron Man. Unfortunately, Marvel's Avengers' boring post-story content quickly becomes tedious, requiring players to grind missions endlessly for too few rewards. Soon, leveling up characters themselves will be more of a grind, too.
In the Operation Future Imperfect update, the amount of XP needed to level up will be increased, making leveling characters even more of a slog than it was before. It's a baffling decision, as it will likely only further hurt the game's player count and make it even more punishing for players choosing to level up a new character.
The Next Marvel's Avengers Game Update Is Making It Harder To Level Up
For anyone who's played through the Marvel's Avengers story campaign, leveling up too fast is not an issue. In fact, it still feels too slow. Players can play through the entire campaign with primarily one or two characters and feel as if they've barely scratched the surface of each character's respective skill trees.
In a blog post on the Square Enix website, developers explained the Marvel's Avengers update will make it harder to level up past level 25 in order to fix the game's "pacing issues."
"The current XP 'curve' isn’t really a curve at all. In most RPGs, the amount of XP you need to level up increases as you gain levels in a curve, but our system is a straight line. This has led to pacing issues, such as skill points currently being rewarded too fast, which may be confusing and overwhelming to newer players. We want each decision to invest in a skill or Heroic to be more meaningful."
Come March 18, it will take progressively longer to earn levels after level 25, up to the current level cap of 50. Developers recommend players who want to level up quicker do so before the new Marvel's Avengers Hawkeye DLC. While the change is being made in the name of ensuring new players don't bounce off the game after being overwhelmed by new skills, the opposite seems more likely; once players learn how slow it is to level up and acquire new gear, they will likely move on to a new game and never come back.
The next Marvel's Avengers update will attempt to fix a problem that doesn't actually exist and, in the process, will most likely be doing more damage to an already struggling game. There may still be time for the decision to be reversed, but given the game's history of issues and delays, it might already be too late.