After Marvel's Avengers had a fairly disappointing release, there was some hope that the Games as a Service model would keep players interested. While the single-player story certainly saw plenty of praise, the game's multiplayer made the shortcomings of Games as a Service painfully clear. Despite Square Enix's attempts to address these complaints, the game's player base continues to dwindle, and many have swiftly moved on to other titles.
The recently revealed Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy was confirmed during Square Enix's E3 presentation to not have any microtransactions or DLC. The lack of microtransactions is of particular note since this also confirms that Guardians won't be based on the less-than-popular games as a service model. It seems Square Enix is moving away from this, perhaps wanting to ensure that more time goes into creating a solid gaming experience.
It is worth noting that Guardians of the Galaxy and Marvel's Avengers are being worked on by two different teams and are pretty different in their gameplay. Marvel's Avengers is developed by Crystal Dynamics, while Guardians of the Galaxy is being worked on by Eidos-Montréal, who did provide some assistant development on Marvel's Avengers. Guardians looks to be more of a third-person action-adventure game, while Marvel's Avengers is more of a brawler.
Still, Guardians not having any multiplayer with a GaaS model or microtransactions must be a huge relief for many. Marvel's Avengers had its reputation tanked by how the game's GaaS model was implemented, leading to many complaints about grinding and in-game item prices. Avengers' strength came with its single-player story, giving Marvel fans a unique take on the Avengers inspired by the Marvel Cinematic Universe, rather than ripped directly from it.
Avengers was intended to be a game that introduced new content slowly, extending the game's lifespan and keeping players coming back for the new content. In contrast, the developers of Guardians of the Galaxy stated during Square Enix's E3 presentation that they want players to have all the content from the get-go. Avengers showed that the content-over-time approach could lead to underwhelming updates that lose player interest or content that many felt should have been in the base game.
It looks as though Guardians is going in a similar direction in terms of its story, as players will control Starlord as they make decisions as team-leader of the recently-formed Guardians. Guardians seems to be a completely single-player game, meaning Eidos-Montréal should be able to put all of their focus into the game's story. While Guardians may not prove that the games as a service model is a total failure, it does show that players prefer it when a solid single-player experience isn't dragged down by a less-than-stellar multiplayer.
Guardians also shows a new direction for Square Enix as a publisher as it appears they've also learned from how Avengers was handled. While they may try another GaaS game in the future, they've clearly listened to the feedback from Marvel's Avengers and have decided to stay away from those kinds of games for the time being. Hopefully, Guardians can deliver on what seems to be a bit of a redemption arc for Square Enix-published Marvel games.