If there’s one thing that’s known about my videogaming proclivities, it’s that I’ll give any old Marvel thing a try. Even though I’m always telling people things like, “don’t be like me, a person who has 300 hours into Crystal Dynamics’ ill-fated Marvel’s Avengers” and “Every day that I log back into Marvel Strike Force I stray further from God’s light,” the Disney-owned superhero brand is like a siren call to me.
And you know, that’s because like many a millennial living in a pop capitalist hellscape, I cannot help a deep-seated affection for this particular brand, one that compels me to play trash. But in the case of Marvel Rivals, the upcoming multiplayer team-based action game from NetEase and Marvel Games, I have the pleasure to report that it ain’t slop, it’s actually good. Like so freaking good.
Marvel Rivals features the famous and not-so-famous heroes and villains of the comics, cartoons and movies doing very Overwatch things like pushing a payload, capturing zones and popping off huge game-changing ultimate moves and announcing them with loud battle cries. Where some games wear their influences on their sleeve, Marvel Rivals has them on an entire freaking jacket. And between the familiar game modes and individual abilities plucked straight off the roster of Blizzard’s massively popular eight year old shooter.
The difference here is that being a Marvel production, wraps familiar gameplay in the warm and comforting embrace of a beloved brand. And that’s fine because one of the joys of the art and craft of videogames is that you can iterate on what others have done before. Blizzard pioneered the Overwatch formula, but Marvel Rivals benefits from their hard work. And even though that means it falls short in creativity, the end result is it plays really well, with an emphasis on exciting teamwork and thrilling clutch moments.
One of the things I liked was the presence of destructible environments. Major parts of every map can be smashed into pieces, making each fracas feel more dynamic. Cover matters more when it can be taken away, after all. Verticality is also a bigger factor in Marvel Rivals, as many heroes are capable of greater flight time than their Overwatch counterparts. You know, Storm and Iron Man can actually like, fly. Like no ifs and buts, they just fly.
Overall, Marvel Rivals focuses its design on how it can most fully represent the various heroes and villains of the Marvel pantheon. Many of them have to be relatively shoehorned into the conceits of the character-based teamwork action, but the spectacular presentation of these characters through visuals and good voice acting and banter help one look past it.
I was naturally drawn to Spider-Man, but I needed some time to get to the skill necessary to perfect his web-swinging hit-and-run style. Hulk’s straightforward melee tanking feels sufficiently powerful even if he lacks versatility. Iron Man’s airborne assault style makes him a priority target, but can clear whole groups with splash damage from his repulsors. I found myself exceling mostly with Doctor Strange whose shield can absorb whole ultimates, but shatters under the pressure of sustained fire.
While Marvel Rivals is currently lacking in innovation, there’s room for hope when you consider that what I played was a closed beta. More test periods are likely to follow in the months leading up to its expected 2025 launch, which means Marvel and NetEase should be thinking about future ways to breathe novelty into the game, if they aren’t already.
