by Felipe Parada

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UPDATE 11.23.17

Looks like Marvel is speeding up the process of the shutdown because as of yesterday Marvel Heroes publisher Gazillion Entertainment laid off a large majority of its staff.

 

The company had originally announced plans to shut down Marvel Heroes by the end of the year. A letter sent company-wide by CEO David von Dorman let the staff know that they were being terminated immediately, and just in time for the holidays. 

 

According to a report in PCGamesN and Kotaku, Marvel Heroes will be shut down at the end of this week instead of by the end of the year like they originally planned.

 

We wish the best of luck to all those affected by the shut down.

 

UPDATE 11.16.17

Earlier today Marvel announced that they will pull the plug on Marvel Heroes Omega at the end of the year signalling that the servers will be shut down on or around December 31st. It is time to bid farewell Marvel Heroes, a game that was never really a great game. Sure it tried to replicate the Diablo formula but it was missing that special component that drives the loot-hoarding, hack n' slash genre. The game debut in 2013 and even with the re-launch on the consoles in 2017, it always felt ok at best.

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For the short amount of time I played the game I was able to unlock 4 characters (Captain America, Gambit, The Punisher and Nova) without paying a dime. The reward system was completely re-worked making rewards a bit more plentiful. That was a great re-work considering the ever growing roster of Marvel characters but unfortunately I will never get the chance to unlock any more characters (I was working toward Captain Marvel for my next unlock). At this point there is no need to go back or even download it before the timer expires. All we can do now is stand in mourning for another game that had so much potential but for some strange reason could never get the lasting appeal that other hack n' slash were able capture.

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R.I.P Marvel Heroes (2013- 2017)

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ORIGINAL POST

As reported by Kotaku earlier, Disney and Marvel have cut all ties with Gazillion Entertainment. For those of you who do not know who Gazillion Entertainment is, they are a licencee of the Marvel brand products that range from mobile games, toys and recently Marvel Heroes Omega that released on PS4 earlier this year. An email received from Marvel states that:

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"We regret to inform out Marvel Heroes fans that we have ended our relationship with Gazillion Entertainment, and that the Marvel Heroes games will be shut down. We would like to sincerely thank the players who joined the Marvel heroes community and will provide any further updates as they become available."

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Marvel Heroes Omega has been silent for weeks and the community was very vocal as to the source of the dead silence. Many were theorizing that the end was near and many speculations pointed to the loss of half of their PC player base, whereas others pointed to the CEO Dave Dohrmann being accused of "inappropriate conduct toward female employees". So the writing was definitely on the wall and it was only a matter of time before the split happened.

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I definitely had fun playing Marvel Heroes Omega and it is sad that a game that was released not to long ago (June 2017) is already being shut down. On the positive side, the Marvel Heroes community is remaining vocal to their displeasure on how the game is being treated.  Many are calling for Disney and Marvel to "step in and straighten the situation out" but I highly doubt that it will happen. The best case scenario would be for Marvel and Disney to hand off the development to another studio but the chances of that happening are slim to none considering the game has only generated roughly an additional $11-15 million (could be more, could be less). 

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There isn't that much more information at the moment and the representatives from Marvel and Gazillion aren't saying much more about the topic. We'll definitely keep track of any developments and update you as soon as possible.