Marvel’s Avengers has just had a massive update. Not only did it add Hawkeye as a new playable hero, with a totally unique campaign, it also brought the game to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. Now, many people, myself included, weren’t sure that Hawkeye was the man for the job. We didn’t think that he’d be enough to stir up some renewed interest from players and attract any new ones on these next-gen platforms. However, we were all wrong, at least in part. As reported by Forbes, the game’s concurrent player numbers saw a boost of 500% with the release of this new hero and update. That’s a huge increase, especially when you consider that the last new expansion, Kate Bishop’s only boosted it by 300%.
I think this boost has been influenced by two things, and one of them will provide a permanent boost to the player base. The first is obviously the new content. The update added both a new hero and an entirely new campaign to play through. This is the stuff that MMO fans love, and that’s how Marvel’s Avengers has been framed. The ongoing gameplay is all online and based around grinding out better gear for your heroes. Now, there’s a whole new hero to do that with, and a bit of new story to boot. We’ve seen it in Destiny 2 time and time again. A big expansion always boosts player numbers permanently. Over the space between expansions, the player numbers wane, but then they grow even larger than before with the next update. Black Panther will absolutely smash any records Marvel’s Avengers currently has.
The second reason the game’s player base has been boosted is definitely because of the next-gen versions. Many players will have been waiting to pick the game up digitally for their next-gen consoles. It only makes sense that when you add more platforms to a game, more players join the player base. I think we’ll see this boost to numbers last until the Black Panther expansion later this year. Between now and then, the player base will wane a little. If any more Operations come along to add content to the game, we’ll likely see even bigger numbers than before at the rate the numbers are going.
