Daily Briefing: Friday 8th October

Square Enix break promises by adding paid XP boosts to Marvel's Avengers

Square Enix's Crystal Dynamics' Marvel's Avengers is enjoying a bit of a resurgence at the minute in terms of playercount, largely thanks to an uptick in new players brought in by the game's recent release on Xbox Game Pass. This is surely a very welcome little chunk of momentum for a game in dire need of it, but it looks like Square Enix are set to fumble the chance in an attempt to capitalise on the attention. Despite numerous promises that it would never happen, paid XP boosts have been added to the main Avengers' in-game marketplace.

• This has raised more than few eyebrows within a community upset with Square Enix for walking back their promise to only sell cosmetics for real money. The timing of all this is also pretty sketchy, with the XP boosts and associated real-money consumable likely being intended to appeal to new players coming in from Xbox Game Pass and trying to make sense of the games myriad currencies and resources. It's also strange that Crystal Dynamics recently nerfed XP gain within the game as players were apparently levelling up too quickly and it was affecting balance and pacing. There is a wholesale progression rework coming, but that isn't until later this year. Looks like pacing isn't a concern when players are willing to pay.

Destiny 2 will archive Forsaken when its next expansion launches

Bungie have confirmed that Destiny 2's Forsaken expansion - i.e. one of its best expansions - will be vaulted with The Witch Queen launches next year. In a new updated published on the game's official blog, Bungie confirmed that “beginning on February 22, the Forsaken campaign and the Tangled Shore destination will enter the DCV (Note: The Dreaming City destination will continue to be available), along with Year 4 Seasonal content, including the Presage and Harbinger Exotic missions.” That's a whole lot of top-quality Destiny content being tidied away for what feels like little to no reason.

• There is reasoning behind it, of course, it just doesn't make the reality of disappearing content any easier to accept. The developer first introduced the vault system last year when Beyond Light pushed out the game's main campaign, a good chunk of its planets, and a pile of other stuff. Bungie's rationale has always been that vaulting old content makes room for new stuff and, while this at least makes sense in theory, Forsaken has always been a premium paid expansion - so it being stuck in the attic just feels odd.

Diablo IV finally has a new game director

The role has been vacant since mid-August when former director Luis Barriga left Blizzard in the wake of the California Department of Fair Housing and Employment lawsuit. While it hasn't been confirmed that Barriga was actively implicated in the various harassment allegations laid down in the lawsuit, his departure was announced by Blizzard alongside those of Jesse McCree and Jonathan LeCraft who most certainly were.

• At any rate, Joe Shely is Diablo IV's new director. Shely is a longtime Blizzard veteran who previously worked on multiple World of Warcraft expansions before serving as a senior game designer on Diablo III. He has been part of the Diablo IV team since 2017 providing general oversight of the game's combat. He also spearheaded development on the playable demo of the game shown off at BlizzCon in 2019. Writing during the development update confirming his appointment, Shely said he's "honoured to continue the vision of Diablo 4 as its new Game Director, and [humbled] to represent the team pouring their hearts into this game.