Marvel's Avengers sees a huge spike in players on PC thanks to its free-to-play weekend

Marvel's Avengers
(Image credit: © 2020 MARVEL)

Marvel's Avengers has seen a resurgence of players on PC thanks to its free-to-play weekend promotion.

While the game typically averaged just a few hundred concurrent players in recent weeks – usually around 500 or so – SteamDB's tracker states that right now, the adventure game is boasting a 24-hour peak of over 10,000 players; 10,115 to be precise (thanks, TheGamer). And at the time of writing, several thousand superheroes are still currently making use of the free weekend.

It also seems to have had a positive buff on the number of Twitch viewers watching livestreams about Ms. Marvel's adventures with the Avengers, too.

The boost in the player base comes courtesy of a free weekend that's giving players a chance to experience the single-player campaign and all the post-launch content for free, as well as a handy 400 percent XP bonus to help newbies rank up quickly and catch up with veteran superheroes. 

There's still time to give it a go if you're curious – the free weekend is live until tomorrow, August 1. You can try it out on PC, PlayStation, and Google Stadia, although Xbox players will have to wait a few more weeks for a similar promotion. 

If you like what you see and want to keep playing after the free weekend comes to a close, the game can be purchased with a 40 per cent discount, too, just in time for the free upcoming War for Wakanda expansion, a Black Panther update that is set to release on August 17.

ICYMI, Marvel's Avengers now lets players team up with the same Heroes in their fireteams.

When The Tachyon Anomaly event finished a little while back – a TLE that permitted players to play their choice of hero, regardless of whether or not someone else in the fireteam had already picked that character – developer Crystal Dynamics was so inspired by the positive feedback from players that the feature was permanently introduced last month.  

"Due to your feedback, we’re permanently turning on the ability to play multiple of the same Hero during matchmaking and when forming Strike Teams," the team said in a blog post at the time. 

For more on what's coming next for the superhero game, head over to the full Marvel's Avengers 2021 roadmap for more.

Vikki Blake
Weekend Reporter, GamesRadar+

Vikki Blake is GamesRadar+'s Weekend Reporter. Vikki works tirelessly to ensure that you have something to read on the days of the week beginning with 'S', and can also be found contributing to outlets including the BBC, Eurogamer, and GameIndustry.biz. Vikki also runs a weekly games column at NME, and can be frequently found talking about Destiny 2 and Silent Hill on Twitter.