This may come as a surprise to the players who abandoned the game long ago and assumed this time had come already, but Crystal Dynamics and publishers Square Enix have announced the impending end of online support for Marvel’s Avengers.

In a blog post published on Friday evening, a latter signed by ‘Marvel’s Avengers Development Team’ reads in part:

To our amazing community,

After two-and-a-half years and introducing twelve of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, following Update 2.8 on March 31, 2023, we will no longer add new content or features to Marvel’s Avengers. All official support for the game will end on September 30, 2023.

Even after official support ceases on September 30, 2023, both single- and multi-player gameplay will continue to be available…

…As a show of our appreciation for our community, starting March 31, 2023 we will make all the game’s Marketplace, Challenge Card, and Shipment cosmetic content available to all players for free. Every single Outfit, Takedown, Emote, and Nameplate from the Marketplace, Challenge Cards, and Shipments will be free for all players from this date onwards if you own a copy of the game.

Gifting the full library of Marketplace cosmetic content is a way to thank our community by letting everyone experience the breadth and depth of content in Marvel’s Avengers.

We know this is disappointing news as everyone in our community has such a connection to these characters and their stories. We’re so, so grateful that you came on this adventure with us. Your excitement for Marvel’s Avengers – from your epic Photo Mode shots, to your threads theorizing who our next Heroes would be, to your Twitch streams – has played a large part in bringing this game to life.

We hope you continue to play and enjoy Marvel’s Avengers. We can’t thank you enough for your support and for being part of our super team.

– Marvel’s Avengers Development Team

While the opening up of the game’s Marketplace is framed here as a gesture of goodwill, it is of course that same marketplace—shackled as it was to some insane notion that every game needs to be a Forever Game, reliant on the grind inherent to a live service experience—that helped kill it off. ‘

While Embracer made a deal last year to buy the game’s developers, severing them from the publisher that made the Avengers licensing deal, it was made clear at the time that any games released prior to the sale would continue to be supported. Which suggests this decision is simply down to not enough people wanting to play or buy stuff in Marvel’s Avengers anymore.

As the note says, this doesn’t mean the game is disappearing off the internet entirely. You’ll still be able to play it, even in multiplayer; there just won’t be any further updates or even technical support for it after September 30.

If you’re a player and want to see the specifics of what’s shutting down when, and what this means for individual updates, you can check that out here in a series of charts and FAQs. One of which contains the deeply funny reminder that Spider-Man must remain a PlayStation exclusive, even in death.