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Marvel Games is finally getting things into gear and revealing games fans have wanted for years. First, Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra, a single-player action-adventure game that is being developed by SkyDance New Media, led by Amy Hennig. And now, after plenty of leaks and rumors, Marvel Games has announced Marvel Rivals, a game designed to go toe to toe with Overwatch during its most tumultuous period.
Marvel Rivals is being developed by NetEase and aims to take a piece of the hero shooter pie from the dwindling Overwatch community. It may or may not be a shooter, but in design, it is a 6v6 arena hero “shooter” with familiar Marvel heroes and villains. Marvel Rivals will not, however, be a first-person experience like Overwatch and other games in the genre, instead, it will opt for a third-person perspective, which arguably makes more sense when playing superheroes.
The game is under development and is prone to change before release, but before then, we have more than enough information to sink our teeth into.
Marvel Rivals Is An Overwatch Style Game & Blizzard Needs To Step Things Up
Marvel Rivals will be a lot like Overwatch, but will only be on PC for now. While the game will launch with a lot of heroes (full list below), according to the leaks, Thor and Moon Knight will not be on the launch roster. It is an online experience through and through, and will not have a PvE mode. Unlike Overwatch, it focuses more on brawling and melee than shooting from afar. And being superheroes, characters will not remain the same for the entire game, as some will have the ability to evolve as the game goes on, an example is Bruce Banner turning into the Hulk.
Marvel Rivals will come with 18 heroes on release, the characters included in the launch roster are as follows:
- Bruce Banner
- The Punisher
- Loki
- Storm
- Scarlet Witch
- Starlord
- Doctor Strange
- Mantis
- Rocket Raccoon
- Black Panther
- Groot
- Magik
- Luna Snow
- Iron Man
- Spider-Man
- Magneto
- Namor
- Peni Parker
A lot of the character choices may seem odd, considering how many more famous Marvel characters are out there, but this was likely due to representing different playstyles than visual appeal.
Is Marvel Rivals Just An Overwatch Clone?
The gameplay footage of Marvel Rivals is strikingly similar to Overwatch and should seem extremely familiar if you’ve played Blizzard’s online shooter in the past. Some have taken to social media and called it a complete clone but with a Marvel skin on top. While that argument does have some merit at first glance, when it comes to gameplay though, a lot of creative additions and changes have been made to the saturated hero shooter genre.
The focus has been lifted from shooting your enemies until they’re dead to more character-dependent options. Iron Man works better from a distance using his lasers, while the Hulk prefers getting into close proximity to do some real damage. Couple that with hero transformations, and you have yourself an even deeper hero system.
On the topic of heroes, it appears as though some specific heroes can synergize together and become stronger. The trailer shows Rocket Racoon jumping onto Groot as they combine their attack power. We don’t know how many more of these combinations are in the game, but it does introduce more strategy when picking a hero than just DPS, Support, or Tank.
Maps are usually static in most hero shooters, but Marvel Rivals will introduce interactive areas in maps that can change the flow of the game from round to round. How well these will play out is yet to be seen. But the trailer does show some destructible environments.
NetEase has announced a closed beta for Marvel Rivals that will take place in May 2024, and the game will launch on both Steam and the Epic Games store.
