A month after its release, the hero shooter Marvel Rivals is proving to be a serious competitor to Overwatch 2 and has great ambitions to stay that way.
Like Overwatch when it was released in 2016, Marvel Rivals is enjoying enormous excitement and shaking up the very competitive world of games-as-a-service and, in particular, hero shooters. While Concord failed spectacularly, NetEase stock appears to have a bright future. This is thanks to the strength of the Marvel franchise, but also to the solid work of the Chinese studio. And the players are not yet at the end of their surprises.
A breakneck pace for Marvel Rivals to dominate the competition
At launch, Marvel Rivals already had 33 playable heroes and nine maps. While the game modes still lack variety compared to the competition, NetEase's work on the many iconic Marvel characters already present is both respectful of the original material and well-suited to the hero shooter genre. With the first season, the Chinese studio scored another major blow by adding the Fantastic 4 family (the Human Torch and the Thing will appear later) and three maps to this already extensive list.
Going forward, NetEase plans to add two new heroes and a map to each future season (divided into two parts). As its director Guangyun Chen clarified in a recent interview with Metro, the title should therefore welcome, and for free, a new hero every month and a half. A really fast pace that completely puts Overwatch 2 to shame. As a reminder: There is only a new hero every two seasons, i.e. about every six months. If NetEase stays on this course, it could clearly be that the days of Blizzard's lost hero shooter are dangerously numbered unless Team 4 reacts very quickly.
Given the multitude of possibilities that the Marvel Universe offers, the question now becomes: Who will be the future heroes joining Marvel Rivals? According to recent leaks, NetEase already has several initial ideas with iconic characters such as Blade, Colossus, Deadpool, Jean Gray and even Professor Xavier. So head to Season 2 first to see which two new heroes are highlighted in it.
Source: metro
