Third-person hero shooters. You love them, you hate them, you find a way to play them because your friends or the Internet (most likely both) rope you into them. But what happens when one of the most beloved franchises of all time in Marvel meets one of the most popular video game genres of all time in hero shooters? You get Marvel Rivals, a hero shooter with all of your favorite Marvel characters ready to face off against one another. From fan favorites such as Spider-Man to obscure characters like Cloak & Dagger, every Marvel fan from the casual to hardcore have a reason to at least check out the latest 6v6 hero shooter from NetEase Games.
The game is free, although there are unlockable items through a purchasable Battle Pass. Just like most 6v6 shooters, there are roles: tank, damage, and support. Marvel Rivals calls them Vanguard, Duelist, and Strategist. There are five lobbies: Tutorial, Quick Match, Pocket Universe, Competitive, and Custom, which allows players to make their own game modes.
Considering this is an online game, at the time of writing this review, there are only a few game types. You can push the payload on Convoy maps, capturing points on the map in Domination maps (Marvel Rivals even takes the game mode name from the Call of Duty franchise), and Convergence, a King of the Hill-esque mode where players fight over a single changing area on the map. While I expected at least some level of innovation, perhaps my expectations were a bit high by the standards of the video game industry in 2024.
Learning all of the characters will take some time. One of my favorite characters is Psylocke, who falls into the B-tier of Marvel heroes: not beloved like Spider-Man or Iron Man, but not obscure either. She has a mix of melee and ranged attacks, but a fan favorite (and perhaps a boon or detriment depending on if you’re playing with or against him) is Jeff the Land Shark, who has gained meme status in the game itself due to his status as one of the lesser-known Marvel characters, his appearance of being a shark that acts like a dog, and his ultimate ability of sucking everyone into a whirlpool and spitting them out in all directions.
Speaking of ultimate abilities, Marvel Rivals does something Overwatch has never done in its eight years of existence—allow unite abilities called Team-Ups. While you could technically mix and match ultimate abilities in Overwatch, it required teamwork and strategy to pull off. Marvel Rivals takes it to new heights. While still requiring teamwork and strategy like any other multiplayer game, you can add both passive and active abilities when you mix and match certain characters. Teaming Magik with Black Panther or Psylocke can give you the Limbo ability, which rewinds time a couple of seconds and gives bonus health if they lose health within that time period. Another powerful one is Ragnarok Rebirth, which requires Hela and either Thor or Loki. After Hela kills an enemy, either Thor or Loki can be resurrected. If they’re still alive, she gives them 100 bonus health, which could be a huge advantage if you’re turning the tide of the game in your favor.
What really let me down is not letting the entire lobby view my Play of the Game—something I relished especially when sealing clutch victories with game-deciding ultimates in Overwatch, but that is replaced by viewing each player’s individual highlights, which means everyone gets into the action, whether they’re brand new or scaling the heights of Competitive Mode. The maps aren’t too bad, but there are only eight of them right now, and hopefully, more are on the way, given the ever-expanding nature of the Marvel Universe. You can also unlock cosmetic items that give your players some variation in look, but some of the best cosmetic items are still locked behind getting out your wallet and making a few microtransactions.
Did Marvel Rivals give NetEase a way in when it came to the overcrowded hero shooter genre? Absolutely, although I’d like to see more franchises take this approach and see what they can do with it. While it is something I’d love to spend hours and hours with my friends on, I can also acknowledge that innovation is key when it comes to games, and that is something we need more of in gaming going into 2025.
Developer: NetEase Games
Publisher: NetEase Games
Platforms: PlayStation 5, PC, Xbox Series X/S
Words by Jose Alvarez
Also published in GADGETS MAGAZINE Volume 25 No. 5 Issue.