The Taking AIM DLC that will add Kate Bishop to Marvel's Avengers was originally supposed to arrive in October, but what we got instead was a "slight delay" so developer Crystal Dynamics could focus its efforts on fixing and tuning the game instead. Today Square Enix announced that the new Avenger will join the team on December 8—and she won't be alone.
Taking AIM will also add a new villain to the game, the Super Adaptoid, who—quick trip to the Marvel Database—was created by AIM and uses "Unstable Molecules" to mimic the abilities of any super-types it comes into close contact with. It can copy up to eight supers at once, with the one oddity being that everything it mimics—Captain America's shield, Iron Man's armor—is green. Which would be a great setup for a Green Lantern joke, but that's DC, so I guess not.
"In Taking AIM, Kate Bishop, master archer and skilled gymnast, resurfaces after her investigation of Nick Fury’s disappearance following A-Day leads to her mentor Clint Barton (aka Hawkeye) going missing as well," Square Enix said. "As she unravels the mystery behind the sudden appearance of the time-warping Tachyon Rifts, she uncovers a twisted new plan from AIM, which pushes her to work with the Avengers once again."
Taking AIM is the first half of a two-part Hawkeye story arc: The second part, Operation Hawkeye: Future Imperfect, will shift the focus to Bishop's mentor, Clint Barton. It's expected to go live in early 2021, and will "lay the groundwork for what's next in the Avenger's Initiative."
Hopefully that groundwork will help Marvel's Avengers find its footing. Steamcharts puts its average concurrent player count on Steam over the past 30 days at just 816—down from 1430 in October, and 7463 through September—and earlier this month Tokyo-based analyst David Gibson reported that sales had only reached an estimated 60 percent of projections, contributing to a loss of roughly $48 million on the second quarter of its financial year. It's not a kiss of death, especially with Marvel's Avengers headed to next-gen consoles early next year, but at this point the slow downward trend shows no sign of changing direction, and that has to be worrying.
