Innovations are always possible, even when everyone else has lost faith.
Innovations are always possible, even when everyone else has lost faith.
In December of 2024, NetEase released a brand new Marvel-themed hero shooter called Marvel Rivals. And a lot of people were frankly skeptical about this game, me included. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has existed in the public consciousness for so long that we’re getting fatigued of hearing the phrase ‘Marvel fatigue,’ as new projects seem to be getting worse and worse with movies like “Captain America: Brave New World” and “The Marvels.” And hero shooters feel like they’ve been done to death. After all the backlash to Overwatch 2 and the horrific failure that was Concord, a lot of gamers rightly felt like the genre had reached some sort of natural endpoint. So a media franchise that has lost most of its faith, and a game genre that people don’t seem to like by and large anymore: put together?
Weirdly enough, it’s an incredible game.
Marvel Rivals has boasted incredible success since its launch, and it looks to have plenty of steam left in its tank. But what makes this game so good? And how do its successes reflect upon the rest of the hero shooter franchise?
The clearest part of what makes Marvel Rivals distinct is its style. If you just look at any of the characters, they embody a comic-book style. They have proportions that you only see in superhero comics and sharp lighting that highlight remarkable silhouettes. Compare the designs of these Marvel characters to those from other properties– the MCU, or even the Avengers game that released in 2020. They look better and they are just straight-up cooler. When you put them side by side it’s almost laughable– the Rivals heroes are so beautifully rendered in a comic book style that their other renditions fail to even begin to grasp.
It seems that for a lot of art directors, photorealism and realistic art styles seem to be the primary goal. Marvel Rivals’ unique stylized visuals mark it as a cut above other comic book adaptations.
In terms of gameplay, there are also some significant differences between Marvel Rivals and other hero shooters like Overwatch that make the game significantly more fun. The biggest thing is the concept of hero balance– that each playable hero in the game is equally powerful, so that games are resolved by skill and not by picking the right heroes. Overwatch’s development team has been embroiled in a constant tug-of-war with its balance, heroes constantly changing to very little end. Most of Overwatch’s heroes have gone through multiple rebalances and some have even been redesigned from the ground up– the character Doomfist used to be an Attacker hero, but they changed him into a Tank. With some exceptions, most of the heroes are largely unrecognizable from when the game began back in 2016.
Marvel Rivals has not existed for this long yet, but it’s already proven to be taking a different approach to balance. Most of the heroes in Marvel Rivals are extremely powerful in their own ways: Adam Warlock can instantly revive himself, Squirrel Girl does way too much damage, Moon Knight barely requires you to aim at times and Iron Fist quite infamously can punch any hero to death, no matter how far away they might be. Doctor Strange can create portals from anywhere to anywhere else on a map, and abilities work through them, changing the strategy of a game.
But they all feel like this (for the most part), the game seeming to embody the idea that if every character is broken, none of them are. But it also works out pretty well thematically: all of these heroes have, at one time or another in comic book canon, pulled off some incredibly powerful feats of superheroes. These characters are meant to be powerful, and they succeed at feeling that way. Hawkeye can effortlessly pick off enemies with one well placed shot, Iron Man, Storm, and the Human Torch can literally fly, and most healer ultimate abilities make your whole team functionally immortal for 15-20 seconds. Speaking of ultimates:
As with most other hero shooters, ultimate abilities are fairly powerful moves that take a while to charge, but mostly end up being hit-or-miss in terms of effectiveness. A good Overwatch player can dominate a whole enemy team with a good ultimate, usually. But in Rivals, ultimates are just as powerful as the characters they belong to. Every ult works as a total game changer, even a poorly placed one can help turn the tide of battle.
The point is that where most hero shooters are designed for fairness and balance, Marvel Rivals make you feel powerful on purpose. But, the game also makes a new innovation and another layer of strategy: Team-up moves.
Certain pairs of characters, when placed on the same team, unlock unique abilities for them that are often pretty powerful. Hulk can throw Wolverine pretty far, Punisher and Rocket Raccoon can give each other unlimited ammo, and the Human Torch can turn Storm’s ultimate into a fire tornado that does insane amounts of damage. These team up moves give reason to play particular characters and open doors for more strategies that a game like this would not normally allow for.
Without even mentioning the dynamic and destructible environments and the colorful, action packed combats, Marvel Rivals does enough right and enough different to rise above the mediocre elements that make up the game’s base. And so far, it’s kept its promises, unlike some other hero shooters available.
Overwatch 2 overly concerned itself with balance and not with fun, and a formula that has gotten repetitive over the years as they continued to lie to their playerbase. With broken promises of a story mode and a “sequel” that ended up being less than a middling balance update, it has gotten people tired of games like it. And Marvel Rivals is still pretty similar to Overwatch, and yet it’s just such plain fun that no one’s complaining and yelling “rip off” too loudly. Who would’ve known?
For more articles about fun multiplayer games, check out this article about the five best multiplayer games on steam. or if you want to learn more about the current state of Overwatch, check out this article about all of the newest heroes in the game.
