In December 2018, TinyCo announced that their hit mobile game Avengers Academy would be coming to a close. They disabled cash purchases and gifted all players with tons of in-game currencies and upgrade materials. I’ll admit, it had been a few months since I’d played the game. After going through two events and not aquiring a single new character even after spending money, I realized that I was dumping too much money into a free game and not getting anything back. The game’s “2.0 update” made changes that many players found frustrating, and I was among them. The game started out as a true gem, however. I started playing the day it was released after I saw it featured in the Play Store. The Avengers in college? Sign me right up. The premise sounded cool, and the game delivered beyond what I would have ever expected from a Free-to-Play game. It featured voice acting from the likes of rapper A$AP Rocky and pro wrestler John Cena as well as well known actors like Kiernan Shipka, Priyanka Chopra, Alison Brie, Bella Thorne, Adrian Pasdar, and Dave Franco. The writing was top-notch. Janet Van-Dyne’s Wasp is an excitable social butterfly. Tony is a ladies man and a show-off, constantly trying to out-science even his professors. Black Widow, dubbed “Mean Ballerina”, is deadpan and mission-focused. Loki is a loner who comes into his own when he is mastering the dance floor. Nick Fury is the headmaster, and the professors include the likes of Hank Pym and Odin. I can’t count the number of times I would have to stifle my laughter in public while playing the game. The character interactions were fantastic, and the bonds formed were exciting and unique. Falcon dating Kamala Khan’s Ms. Marvel was a highlight of my time with the game. Discovering that Wasp somehow knows Groot-speak was a surprise that just made sense. And then there was the big twist, revealed as part of the Infinity War event. Nick Fury was actually from another reality, one where Thanos murdered all of the superheroes. Fury left that reality to come to this one in hopes of better preparing his team to fight Thanos. We even got backup from a newscaster turned SHIELD agent. Story was never an area in which the game struggled. The server just went down earlier today. With as frustrated as I got with the game at times, I’m legitimately sad to see it go. It has been my favorite mobile game, hands down. From art to character design to story, this game was the best at what it did. I can only hope another gem pops up that draws me in the way Avengers Academy did. In memory of Avengers Academy, let’s watch the launch trailer (above) and say our goodbyes.