Marvel announced today that it is ending its partnership with Gazillion Entertainment and shuttering Marvel Heroes in the process.
Marvel Heroes was a "Diablo Marvel" title released in 2013 on PC and earlier this year on Xbox One and PS4. The games playerbase had notions that the game might be in dire straits when the studio mysteriously stopped talking about progress and game developments. Gazillion missed four of the weekly community updates they usually held, the games Halloween event never happened, and the supposed tie-in with Thor: Ragnarok never saw the light of day either. Also noticed by fans; two community managers seemed to disappear from the forums.
“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. We would like to sincerely thank the players who joined the Marvel Heroes community, and will provide any further updates as they become available.”
Kotaku had two former employees along with a current employee confirm that "within a year of the game's launch, there were at least three rounds of layoffs." It was also reported that several individuals who had done work on the game in the previous week were told not to come into the office.
Its a sad whimper of an ending to a once great MMO title that captured the spirit of its characters and had a pretty active playerbase across multiple platforms. Only time will tell if Marvel (owned by Disney) will release a successor title.
Again, Marvel Heroes has been shut down by Marvel and Gazillion Entertainment. A shut down date of December 17th, 2017 has been rumored but there is no official confirmation of that date yet.