Marvel Rivals is probably the closest thing to a slam dunk of an on-paper video game blueprint. Taking some of the most inspiring and sinister characters from one of the most popular franchises on the planet and throwing them into a 6v6 shooter straight out of the Overwatch handbook basically amounts to an instant success. While at first cursory glance Rivals may purport to be a hollow facsimile of Overwatch designed to cash in on the Marvel license, it’s actually an enjoyable and engaging hero shooter that surpasses its overtly obvious inspiration. I’ve now spent over 100 hours in Marvel Rivals and even climbed to Platinum rank because I simply cannot put the game down due to it being so fun and engaging. This deceptively innovative hero shooter offers satisfying gunplay and melee combos, illuminates the unique qualities of its iconic cast, and emphasizes fun for the player in almost all of its gameplay mechanics. At its core, Marvel Rivals is impressive, chaotic fun that still has me wanting to play even after 100 hours, and the best free-to-play multiplayer shooter on the market right now.
Marvel Rivals is a 6v6 competitive hero shooter in the same vein as the original Overwatch and borrows many mechanics from that genre-defining Blizzard title. There are multiple game types in Marvel Rivals, including one that requires picking up dropped orbs from defeated enemies – similar to Call of Duty’s kill confirmed – along with escorting a payload or capturing and defending a hardpoint in modes that seem ripped right out of Overwatch. However, Rivals has the additional feature of destructible level geometry, which adds to the chaos of firefights and brawls, but also creates an even greater tactical ceiling for those who want to exploit every advantage. Not to worry though, this destructibility can’t be abused because the architecture will replace itself after a certain window of time. There is also a designated ranked queue, which will entice more competitive players, and even managed to lure me into spending hours upon hours in rivetingly tense matches that are unlike anything I’ve experienced in another comparable shooter.
The main draw of Marvel Rivals is obviously its larger-than-life Marvel characters. Many of these have been popularized by the MCU, at least in more mainstream circles. You have all the notable staples here – including Spider-Man, Iron Man, Captain America, Black Panther, and the Incredible Hulk – but the roster is significantly more vast than that. Rivals launched with a whopping 33 characters, which is practically unheard of compared to Rivals’ contemporaries. Providing over 30 characters up-front, without drip-feeding character releases over a longer period to artificially boost engagement – and for free rather than behind a paywall – is an exemplary, player-friendly move. The result is a level of depth and variety that is plainly evident to the player. I’ve played over 100 hours of Rivals and I haven’t even touched Iron Man, one of the absolute coolest Marvel Heroes conceptually and arguably the star of the MCU. Just playing as Tony Stark alone could provide me with 20 more hours of enjoyment, and that’s just one character. Rivals has 33 in total currently, hardly any of them are boring to play, and even characters like Hulk and Wolverine, which were largely overlooked in terms of viability in ranked play, have surprisingly been shown to have uncommonly high win rates. Essentially, almost any character is viable in competitive play, even the ones that were slept on when early assessments were being made, and that is a true testament to the character design. Rivals doesn’t penalize players’ exploration and enjoyment of its abundant character and playstyle variety. The entire cast the the Fantastic Four is purportedly coming in Season One, which begins a mere 3 weeks from now, catapulting the roster count up to 37 or more characters in short order. Overwatch 2 began as a franchise more than 8 years ago in 2016, and only has 42 total characters to date. Marvel Rivals might be borrowing pretty much the kitchen sink from Overwatch, but it prioritizes experience, value, and flare in a way that captivates potential players for all the right reasons.
A bevy of characters is one thing, but how do they play? NetEase has done a fantastic job of designing each character to feel distinct and showcase the powers and abilities that make them iconic in ways that result in frenetic fun on the battlefield. Not to mention, almost all of the character designs are phenomenal, giving Marvel Rivals an eye-popping, cell-shaded flare that manages to be both creatively distinct and iconically familiar. Every character’s aesthetic design, movement, passive and active abilities, and powerful ultimate move seem meticulously curated to make them both faithfully unique and remarkably fun to play. For instance, as Venom, players can swing through the air, envelop and poke enemies with tentacle-like extensions, and devour a group of enemies at once in a massive ultimate attack. Doctor Strange can turn the tide of any battle with his signature portals, bringing an entire team from spawn to contest an objective or deceiving the enemy team into unwittingly falling off the map to their deaths. Wolverine can absolutely carve up the enemy frontline, regenerate health in a pinch, and even launch himself into the air while skewering an enemy in the process. Jeff the Land Shark heals teammates with a stream of water -or with bubbles he can place throughout the arena – and can gobble up the entire enemy team for a massive momentum-turning play, all while being exceedingly cute and adorable. The Winter Soldier can automatically reload his magnum revolver-like gun with the use of his bionic arm and can also launch a destructive assault from above, leaping forward and shouting “Again!” at the top of his lungs with every subsequent leap preceded by another felled enemy. Rivals is just absolute glorious mayhem half the time and punchy, tactical team-based gameplay the other half, and the resulting concoction is satisfyingly fantastic. Almost every character in Rivals offers unique fun in their gameplay, enjoyable anecdotes in their voice lines, and an overall captivating experience that boasts a level of character style and depth that is ultimately genre-leading.
When selecting one of the 33 unique mutants and metahumans to choose from in Marvel Rivals, there is an element of strategy to incorporate into that decision. The extensive roster of villains and heroes is divided into three archetypes. There are the vanguards, which function as the tank class by holding the front line and assaulting the opposition head-on with brute force strength. Meanwhile, duelists are meant to be more aggressive, damage-dealing characters with a high capacity for eliminations. Finally, there are the strategists, a complex set of characters who offer various support capabilities – including healing – to help the team stay in the fight. Team compositions featuring each particular archetype are not required, but a healthy variety is optimal. Having a diverse squad is incentivized by the game’s rather unique team-up system, which adds further depth to gameplay in noticeable ways. For instance, Hulk and Iron Man are less potent heroes on their own, but their team-up ability gives Hulk a significant increase in health and gives Iron Man a gamma damage boost that can be activated at will. Thus Hulk and Iron Man, by way of this contrived synergy, are not only viable but advantageous hero picks in the upper echelons of competitive ranked play. These team-ups provide extensive depth to team compositions and strategy and set Marvel Rivals apart from Overwatch in a very notable way. Likewise, they’re in keeping with the themes of Marvel, which often has heroes assemble in teams to conquer a bigger evil when their singular powers alone would not be sufficient. You can even request a team-up on the selection screen, which is a rather clever inclusion given the lack of role requirements. Overall, the team-ups make the game unique and amplify the power fantasy that plays out in every match by bringing many of the heroes’ potencies to new extremes. The inclusion makes the game more fun than without it and opens the door for additions, changes, and tweaks that can keep the meta fresh and provide longevity for the game with its future content.
I levied the critique in my video review (available above) that the duelist heroes were considerably more fun to play than the strategists. I will set the record straight here and now, and retract that assessment, given that I have now spent the overwhelming majority of my time with Marvel Rivals playing as Mantis – a strategist hero – and enjoying that thoroughly. It still should be said that the lack of strategist heroes (there are only five at present) when compared to the myriad duelist hero options should be rectified in the game’s future. However, the available strategist heroes are not only fun to play but extremely powerful and integral to any team’s success in ranked play. To that end, I also remarked that Rivals “seems less balanced than it does box office” and I retract that statement as well. Marvel Rivals has gone for the approach of making every hero overpowered in the right circumstances, and the effect is glorious. There are only a few heroes -notably Storm and Black Widow -that seem grossly under-tuned and simply not viable in competitive play, but harkening back to the Hulk and Iron Man synergy I outlined earlier – almost every hero can be dominant at high levels of competitive play. The effect is that Marvel Rivals is simultaneously successful at being largely fair and also an immense power fantasy. This dual success is why I think Rivals is so fun and difficult to put it down. I have never in my life wanted to attempt climbing a ranked ladder in a PvP game and likewise, when I have attempted, I have never reached anything above Silver before. I am Platinum rank in Rivals – that is above Bronze, Silver, and Gold – and there’s not even any special reward for reaching Platinum rank. The gameplay was just so phenomenal and the feeling of ranked progression so rewarding that I felt compelled to keep grinding my way up the ladder, which again, is an experience I’ve never had with any other competitive multiplayer shooter. Maybe I resorted to ranked progression because battle pass progression is exclusively tied to challenges rather than any experience earned per match – an abysmal mistake on Rivals’ part that I would not have expected and which might be the game’s most glaring deficiency – but the challenges that award battle pass tokens can be completed against AI bots, making the game approachable and progressible for players of all ages and skill levels, which I consider a massive, unprecedented win on Rivals’ part. Moreover, purchased battle passes never expire, dispensing with any financially predatory tactics often used by Rivals’ contemporaries that might take advantage of players’ fear of missing out on limited-time battle pass cosmetics. Sure there is still a store with limited-time purchasable costumes, and the price tags aint cheap, but Rivals has to make money somehow, and I’m sure it will make a lot of it with how fun the gameplay is and how aesthetically pleasing the character designs are. Really, besides the agonizingly slow battle pass progression and the loss of battle pass tokens at the end of each season, Marvel Rivals might be the blueprint for how to make a successful, exceedingly fun, player-friendly, free-to-play multiplayer shooter that all others should follow.
After spending more than 100 hours with Marvel Rivals, I think it definitely has the secret sauce in spades. It is so fun, so compelling, and so addicting that it has burst into a genre space that is exceedingly overcrowded and claimed a wealth of players of its own, and for good reason. Marvel Rivals doesn’t just copy the formula of its predecessors – it improves upon it in notable ways that provide a fantastic experience for the player. The characters are each given their own opportunities to shine through their designs and abilities, the matches are engaging and tense, and the fun factor doesn’t wear off or become repetitive in any short order, largely due to the genre-leading character variety. NetEase has knocked it out of the park in terms of offering a competent multiplayer shooter. There are skins, events, new characters, and a battle pass to keep players engaged for the long haul, and I am incredibly eager and optimistic to see what this game will offer content-wise in the coming months. Marvel Rivals is not only an impressive multiplayer hero shooter, it’s one of the best games to release this year, and I consider it an incredible (Hulk) smash hit, and a Hela good time.
