Posted in: Games, Video Games | Tagged: disney, Gazillion Entertainment, marvel, marvel heroes, Marvel Heroes Omega

Gazillion Entertainment Shuts Down Marvel Heroes

Published Wed, 15 Nov 2017 15:45:36 -0600

Last updated Wed, 15 Nov 2017 18:15:43 -0600

Gazillion Entertainment has shut down Marvel Heroes, the company's free-to-play MMORPG featuring a ton of Marvel characters including the X-men. A representative from parent company Disney confirmed the game's closure to Polygon in an email earlier today.

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

The news was first reported by Kotaku.

Marvel Heroes was originally released in 2013 on PC and re-released as Marvel Heroes 2015, Marvel Heroes 2016 and Marvel Heroes Omega. Marvel Heroes Omega was released for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One earlier this year.

Savvy Marvel Heroes players knew the game's developer might be in trouble when the studio stopped talking about progress on the game last month. Developer Gazillion missed four of its weekly community updates, plus the game's Halloween event and upcoming Thor Ragnarok movie tie-in content, which is never a good sign for a game. The disappearance of two notable community managers was also a bad sign.

One current and two former Gazillion employees told Kotaku that, "within a year of the game's launch, there were at least three rounds of layoffs."

And one current employee said that "over the past two to three months, he had been developing features for the game, but was "not very confident" that they would eventually get implemented."

While a game closing down is always sad to see, this move isn't too much of a surprise given the repeated re-brandings of the game and Disney's recent moves distancing the X-men from all future Marvel games- an edict that has been followed in both Marvel Vs Capcom Infinite and even LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2.

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