It’s been one year since Marvel’s Avengers hit the scene, and developer Crystal Dynamics released a new road map for the rest of 2021. With details for the first raid, a power level cap increase, and, of course, confirming again that Spider-Man is slated to come to PlayStation later this year.
In an extensive new blog, Crystal Dynamics looks back at the year, including all the ups and downs, as well as looks towards the future providing a glimpse at some upcoming content.
First thing’s first, yes, Spider-Man is still slated to be released sometime this year as a playable character in a new Hero Event exclusive to PlayStation players. Unfortunately, that’s about all the details Crystal Dynamics shared today. The team also confirmed that Spider-Man or Avengers will not be showcased in this week’s PlayStation livestream.
The roadmap also revealed Avengers’ very first raid content. Called “Discordant Sound” the raid will come in Standard (power level 150-160) and Elite modes (power level 160-175) and will have players face Klaw. The raid will conclude his story from the War for Wakanda expansion.
Crystal Dynamics says the raid will “be the most challenging content yet” and will test players’ individual skills, four-player teamwork, and observational skills.
On the quality of life side of things, Crystal Dynamics confirmed that there will be a power-level cap increase coming to Avengers. However, Crystal Dynamics says the increase won’t come at the expense of the gear players have already earned. Coming with the level increase, there will be a new system that lets players upgrade Epic, Legendary, & Exotic gear from power level 100 to the new power level cap.
Avengers will also introduce a more streamlined approach to resources at some point in the future. This change will make it so that resources like Polychoron and Upgrade Modules will be reserved for specific uses like upgrading major artifacts and upgrading gear respectively. The only resource that will have multiple uses will be Fragments.
To celebrate the one-year anniversary, Avengers will roll out several in-game community activities. From September 2 – 16, anyone who completed all story-based campaigns including the post-launch content like Reassemble, Taking Aim, Future Imperfect, and War for Wakanda will earn a celebratory nameplate.
The nameplate will be a retroactive reward for anyone who has already completed these campaigns.
There will also be free weekly rewards this month starting with a free Iron Man outfit and anniversary bundle (Black Panther nameplate, Hero’s Catalyst, and Fragment Extractor) followed by a free Thor outfit and additional Hero’s Catalyst a week later.
Although the initial launch for Avengers has been rocky, Crystal Dynamics is working continuously on improving the experience and says that player feedback is the team’s number one priority. And while there’s still no concrete info on Spider-Man just yet, he’s still slated to arrive in 2021 as per the newest roadmap.
Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.