Gazillion Entertainment, the makers of Marvel Heroes, have shut down. This means the free-to-play superhero action-RPG has also shut down, one month earlier than it was supposed to. Disney, who own Marvel, had announced earlier this month that they were breaking up their partnership with Gazillion and so the game would shut down on December 31st. But losing their big gig meant that Gazillion needed to shut down, and with no one left to run the game it’s gone now too. This has gone badly for everyone. (more…)

Despite relaunches, countless updates, a massive roster of superheroes and villains, and its recent move to consoles, Marvel Heroes is being shut down. Disney and developers Gazillion had announced last week that they were dissolving their partnership, and that servers would go quiet on December 31. Today, only a couple of days before Thanksgiving, staff were “let go”, and Marvel Heroes may now cease to exist tomorrow.

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Superhero Diablo-like Marvel Heroes never really had much of a chance. A terribly rushed launch to try and capture as much superhero hype as possible backfired, leaving what could have been a successful game with a mammoth struggle just to find its footing and catch up.

This summer’s relaunch as Marvel Heroes Omega (coinciding with the launch of the console version) was the last nail in the coffin, not only did it fail to draw new players to the free-to-play action-RPG, but active player-counts tumbled sharply on PC. This week, Disney pulled the plug, announcing the dissolution of their partnership with developers Gazillion, and signalling that the servers will shut down on December 31st.

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I don’t think I’ve ever written a more negative preview than for Marvel Heroes. There was a reason for that: it was terrible. Ever optimistic, and hugely hopeful for a fun F2P entry in the Marvel universe, I’d hoped to return to the game to see if criticisms of its alpha and beta phase had been taken on board, to create the superhero MMO/aRPG we’d been hoping for. So far, it’s doing its best to stop me finding out.

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