Marvel Rivals

Marvel Rivals has finally launched to the public. This 6v6 Hero fighter features dozens of classic and modern Marvel heroes as they duke it out across the multiverse. It’s a beautiful, fun, and bold title. It’s also shameless in how many mechanics and character moves it takes from Overwatch. After many matches, I think I’m ready to write down my thoughts before I go back and play many more.

Multiversus

There’s a stunning amount of lore baked into this title, that you will most likely never engage with. It’s smart though, as my kids got so deep into Fortnite that I can already see them being pulled in on this one. Things began with two Doctor Doom variants having an experiment go wrong. It caused a multiversal entanglement known as the “Timestream Entanglement”, creative.

This created a series of “Chronoverses” that have familiar, though slightly different versions of the characters we all know and love. You have various plotlines like Wakanda taking to the stars and becoming a galactic empire as the backdrop for various levels. There’s a lot more, including plots for Spider-Man, Iron Man, Wanda Maximoff, and Dr. Strange. That’s right, Spider-Man is finally back on Xbox and he looks and plays amazingly.

For now, during Season 0, it’s all a chaotic but enjoyable mess. I might not know exactly what or why things are happening, but I’m enjoying the hell out of it. It’s incredibly anime, with a focus on pulling in players of all ages. That goes for the gameplay as well.

So Many Characters

Marvel Rivals is a shameless Overwatch clone in many spots, and brilliantly original in just as many others. The game’s initial roster is enormous, with 33 heroes on hand. Compared to Overwatch and other hero shooters/brawlers it’s a lot to take in at the start. There are three hero archetypes with a handful in each. They are:

Vanguard (Tanks): Thor, Captain America, Groot, Magneto, Doctor Strange, Peni Parker, Venom

Strategist (Healers/Support): Rocket Raccoon, Jeff the Land Shark, Loki, Mantis, Luna Snow, Cloak & Dagger, Adam Warlock

Duelist (Damage focused): Spider-Man, Iron Man, Magik, Hela, Punisher, Black Panther, Star-Lord, Storm, Namor, Winter Soldier, Scarlet Witch, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Iron Fist, Moon Knight, Psylocke, Squirrel Girl, Storm, Wolverine

It is a ton to try and understand in your first few dozen matches. Everyone plays differently with long, mid, and short-distance options spread throughout heroes’ toolkits. How everyone heals is vastly different, the way tanks are meant to survive, and who your damage class can focus on will take serious commitment to learn.

Balance isn’t the best right now, which is to be expected. Characters like Jeff the Land Shark can feel mightily OP at times, though I’ve found Cloak & Dagger to be my preferred main as a Strategist. Every character has a tutorial to play through as well as easy access to what active and passive abilities they have.

CHAOS

If you have any familiarity with Overwatch then characters like Luna Frost (quite similar to Lucio in a few ways) and more will be easy to learn. There are difficulty ratings given to each character and I swear they’re based on how original their kits are. There is a bigger emphasis on melee in Marvel Rivals than in overwatch and this is where the always third-person camera perspective can both hinder and help.

Characters like Storm and Iron Man flying up in the air get great use out of the extra field of view. I found it tougher with tanks and melee characters, at least at first, though. Things get chaotic, quickly, with spells and dust flying everywhere. Many bridges and walls can be destroyed with heavy enough attacks.

All characters have an ult, and much like early Overwatch some of them are incredibly overpowered right now. It’s not completely broken, but Adam Warlock’s team rez or Scarlet Witch’s Chaos explosion can quickly turn a win into a loss or vice versa. To break down every character would take 15,000 words and thankfully the game does a solid job of letting you learn them outside of fights.

It also greatly encourages teamwork, which has been welcome to see as it isn’t always the case in objective-focused titles like this. Most missions see you fighting for control over points or moving payloads. It’s familiar, seems decently balanced for the offense vs. defense, and again is shamelessly aped from previous titles in the genre to great effect.

Presentation

Marvel Rivals is a F2P microtransaction-focused live-service game. One place it differs is that the season passes do not expire. That is a big change from most previous titles, with only Halo Infinite being a major release that I remember doing. There are multiple currencies but all of them convert 1:1 to get you cosmetics. There are no pay-to-win/skip or gameplay effecting purchases here.

Everything is a skin or other cosmetic item, and my god are they expensive. Valorant fans, among many others, will be used to a single skin or bundle starting around $20. It’s always a shock to me though, and for one of the few times in my life, I was tempted (for a moment). The skin variety is low at the moment, but you can bet there will be many more to come. I adore the art style of this game. From Thor to Galactica (the girl boss version of the World Eater, who is full-on uwu anime) every character design kicks serious ass.

Presentation-wise the game has a slick UI that can be overly cluttered on occasion. There is already a section for esports that plays an annoying animation every time you click into it. I played entirely on Xbox Series X, splitting time between the 60fps and 120fps modes depending on how good I wanted the footage captured to look. My main issue with the title is the lack of HDR support on the console right now. I’d play on PC but there is no cross-progression at launch so I have not.

Crossplay, Audio, and the Future

While there is no cross progression there is cross play. Utilizing a number system, it is a bunch of numbers, you can play with Xbox, PlayStation, and PC players in any match. There is a toggle for console only on the main menu as well, though I didn’t find much issue doing regular quick play. A lot of the characters have a slight homing to their attacks which helped me deal with mouse and keyboard snipers.

Audio-wise the game is extremely anime with some decent, though occasionally annoying voice work. Character callouts work as you would hope, with different lines for ultimates depending on whether it’s friendly or not. There’s a lot of location and character-based dialogue between heroes that help out these new worlds and stories. As the first season is a short one I am curious to see where things go and how the level setup changes.

There are already 12 heroes who have been data-mined as potential additions in the future. For a roster this big I hope they take their time doling them out. It’s hard enough to know what each character around me is doing, and having a month or so at a time to learn the new meta as characters are added in is hopefully the minimum of time allotted.

Also, I need to state how stable the launch has been. In an era where games are routinely broken at launch I, have not had many issues with Marvel Rivals. Occasionally a queue, which always pops in .1-2 seconds, might error out. For a title this popular it has been, sadly, incredible to see how stable things have been in an online-only title.

Wrapping Things Up

Marvel Rivals is an excellent start to what should be a long-running franchise. NetEase has done a great job of proudly using mechanics that are well-known while crafting a uniquely crazy experience all their own. This 6v6 hero shooter/fighter has started from a place of strength. With proper leadership, it should only improve and grow as the years pass this multiverse by.