With more than 10 million (count em’) players on the clock in just three days since launch, Marvel Rivals from developer NetEase Games has struck on some sort of magical formula to entice the masses. Yet, the reality is that Marvel Rivals just incorporates a lot of robust shooter mechanics extremely well alongside a stylish licensing of some of the most recognisable comic book characters in decades. So here are the four key ways developer NetEase Games has managed to fuse a legendary comic book IP with a resoundingly solid foundation that reflects the best the genre has to offer.
A Massively Varied Free Roster Of Unique Characters That Will Only Get Bigger And Better Over Time
Absolutely screaming in with a superhero-stuffed roster filled with 33 playable and entirely different characters at launch, Marvel Rivals certainly isn’t lacking when it comes to its selection of heroes for players to stick their metaphorical teeth into. The Marvel Rivals roster runs the full gamut of Marvel characters from the well-known to the obscure including the likes of Iron Man, Captain America, Bruce Banner, Thor, Venom, Rocket Raccoon and even Jeff the Land Shark (who has a very real set of teeth that he uses to sink into the flesh of his enemies).
Spread across the three broad classes of Duelist (damage dealers), Strategist (healing and buffs) and Vanguard (tank), each of the characters that make up Marvel Rivals roster plays appreciably differently from one another. From the defensive and stamina-focused capabilities of Captain America to the ranged abilities of The Punisher (which also include a handy turret that can be erected), to Spider-Man and Iron-Man, who can both use their trademark means of traversal to navigate their way across any given battlefield, the sheer uniqueness of the Marvel Rivals roster cannot be understated. After all, there’s nothing quite like watching Doctor Strange create a magical portal for Spider-Man who then leaps through it and ends up behind the enemy and in a position to inflict maximum damage.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Though a debut roster of 33 characters isn’t anything to be sniffed at, NetEase Games has committed itself to providing a steady stream of new characters in the coming weeks, months and years, fattening out an already sizable selection of playable heroes from every corner of Marvel fandom. Put simply, if you’re a Marvel fan with a thing for hero shooters, then Marvel Rivals isn’t looking like it will leave your social calendar anytime soon.
Heroic Synergies That Both Add Depth While Honouring Its Comic Origins
Cleverly building on the pre-existing and rather complex relationships that exist between the many characters of the long-established Marvel universe, Marvel Rivals allows specific combinations of heroes to enjoy special buffs and attacks that simply wouldn’t be available to solo heroes or other pairs of characters. With a current total of 15 very different synergy attacks, each of these collaborative specials has its own tactical benefit for each battle too. For example, pairing up Rocket Racoon with either the Winter Soldier or the Punisher, provides both of the latter gentlemen with faster firing and infinite ammo buffs. Meanwhile, putting Bruce Banner (Hulk) and Wolverine together, allows the not-so-jolly green giant to literally hurl Wolverine a lot farther than his leaping ability normally permits, allowing Logan to kick out much more damage than he otherwise could as a result.
Destructible Legendary Locations From The Depths Of Marvel Lore
In case you’re wondering, there is a sort of narrative setup that serves as the basis for Marvel Rivals scraps and, well, it’s pretty much as thin as it gets. A calamitous scrap between Doctor Doom and his heroic counterpart Doctor Doom 2099 results in a timestream entanglement which unceremoniously pulls both heroes and villains from across the multiverse to fight it out for supremacy. Hardly riveting stuff then, however what it does mean is that in addition to a sizable range of playable characters, Marvel Rivals also provides players with a massive range of fresh locations to duke it out in as well.
As such, this whole ‘timestream entanglement’ thing has resulted in some fairly gnarly mash-ups of Marvel locations in addition to some more pedestrian locales from the pages of Marvel’s comic books. Yggsgard for example, is a twisted amalgamation of Asgard and the Great Tree Yggdrasil, while the Kingdom of Wakanda has now spread itself far beyond the borders of Earth, having established itself as the Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda.
From a design standpoint, each of Marvel Rivals’ eight maps not only boasts the sort of intuitive layout one would expect from a hero shooter worth its salt, but each of them also boasts a number of embedded destructible elements to keep things interesting too. From crashing ceilings to tumbling pillars, Marvel Rivals’ generous arrangement of destructive scenery provides additional damage-dealing opportunities, allowing skilled players to unleash a chunky amount of AoE damage on a group of foes at any time. Much like the expected stream of free characters that will pop along with every future season in Marvel Rivals, players should also expect that Marvel Rivals will also be bringing shiny new maps for players to scrap across with each new season at no extra cost.
Battle Passes That Don’t Expire And Respect Your Time
For the longest time, the traditional battle pass has been something of a double-edged sword. Though the rewards obtained through these battle passes often appeal and tend to do a fairly effective job of encouraging players to grind the time away in order to unlock them, they very often tend to be time-limited, requiring players to compress all of that play into a set period before another battle pass is introduced and the previous one (and its rewards) become no longer available.
In Marvel Rivals, no such time limit exists, meaning you can take as long as you like to earn the rewards within each battle pass without the worry of that battle pass disappearing and taking those rewards, together with your hard-won progress, into the abyss. As a side note, this also ties into how microtransactions work within Marvel Rivals, too. Instead of making any material difference to the gameplay side of things, Marvel Rivals instead wisely channels its monetisation model into a massive range of skins for each of its characters which can either be earned through in-game currency or paid for real money.
Indeed, when you consider just how many different versions there are of each character across all of Marvel’s history, not to mention the variants for playable characters that will be introduced in future free seasonal content, it certainly appears that Marvel Rivals will have progression in spades and perhaps more importantly, respects your time to do so.
