Marvel Rivals has come for the hero-shooter crown, and it’s hard to argue that it doesn’t have a legitimate claim to the throne. It has a big roster of heroes with a ton of variety across them, no role queue, and 6v6, all of which are important to a great hero shooter. Although it lifts more than a few of Overwatch’s ideas, it is actively targeting and addressing some of the biggest complaints players have about Blizzard’s shooter. Marvel Rivals expands on familiar ideas in smart ways and has a visually striking and distinct art style. Add in that it’s a fun multiplayer experience and it makes it far more than just another also-ran hero shooter clone.
Opting for 6v6 and a third-person camera view, Marvel Rivals has a vast variety of playstyles across its launch roster. Offering everything from simple shooting-focused heroes like Punisher to complex melee heroes like Spider-Man, all the while making it feel cohesive. Although it will undoubtedly be chaotic for players trying a hero shooter like this for the first time, there are a variety of heroes that make picking up the game simple and an impressive roster of alternative picks that can gradually increase complexity.
It does have limited main game modes at launch, with only Domination, which involves fighting over a control point; Convoy, where a team escorts a payload; and Convergence, which is a combination of the two. These are split across a variety of maps taken from the Marvel multiverse, with locations like Tokyo 2099, Yggsgard, and the Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda. These different locations provide a ton of environmental variety, with the pristine look of Asgard contrasted with the dense buildings of Tokyo 2099. While the visual styles don’t change the flow of the game, the map layouts do. For example, both Tokyo 2099 and Klyntar have hybrid maps–where the attacking team must capture a control point, which unlocks a payload to push–but Tokyo 2099 has multiple buildings blocking the defenders’ line of sight, while on Klyntar the area from spawn to the point is much more open, promoting more long-range hero options. It can become visually stale, but more importantly, having fewer modes means that your team’s strategies don’t shift as much from match to match, which can result in them blending together because each individual match doesn’t feel unique, aside from the team compositions.
What helps keep things fresh is the massive roster of 33 characters, which can be combined in numerous ways thanks to a lack of role queue. A role queue would lock players into one of the three classes (Duelist, Vanguard, and Strategist), forcing a perfect 2-2-2 composition. Across numerous quick play and competitive matches, however, there is usually a ton of variety in the team compositions, many of which can be viable: Dropping a Vanguard to have a third Duelist can be as effective as running three Strategists with only one Duelist. Teaming up Magik, Spider-Man, and Black Panther to overwhelm the enemy with close-range characters is a strategy that not only promotes but rewards aggressiveness, giving a much different match feel than just sitting back with two tanks, and wouldn’t be possible with forced roles. Sure, it leads to the occasional match where your team runs all Duelists and gets rolled because of it, but the strategy it offers in exchange is worth the trade off.
Many of these heroes do feel like they were pulled straight out of Overwatch, even if they are mash-ups, like Starlord taking abilities from Reaper and Tracer. Hawkeye’s and Black Widow’s abilities share a resemblance to Hanzo and Widowmaker from Overwatch. Luna Snow has a similar ultimate to Zenyatta, while Mantis can heal and buff enemies in a similar fashion to how Zenyatta heals by placing orbs that heal over time. But other characters, particularly the melee-focused ones, are more original. Magik, Iron Fist, and Spider-Man, for example, feel like new creations for Marvel Rivals. The same goes for many of the Vanguard heroes like Groot, who can build a variety of walls to defend his teammates and block entrances. These walls aren’t time-limited like Mei’s from Overwatch, but instead will stay up until destroyed or if Groot chooses to move them. Destroying the walls gives away your position to the enemy group, creating a more dynamic power than just a temporary wall. There are enough new ideas to keep Marvel Rivals from entering ripoff territory, but there is certainly a sense of deja vu at times.
The dedication to bringing comic superpowers to Marvel Rivals while still creating a unique shooter has also led to some interesting characters. While there is no shortage of straightforward shooting heroes, like Hela, Hawkeye, and Punisher, the abundance of melee-only characters adds a more MOBA-like feel to matches. Ability combos for characters like Spider-Man can be challenging to master, as you’re required to land four different abilities in a short period of time to be effective. There’s enough depth to many heroes to be a challenge for skilled players, and mastering the usage of abilities is satisfying. The game balance favors the more aggressive characters at the moment, but the number of heroes who feel unplayable in competitive modes is incredibly low, which is surprising for a game with such a large roster. That high number of viable characters helps to keep each match varied. The biggest complaint here is that there are a few too many Strategist ultimates that do so much healing that anything other than an ultimate from the other team is completely ineffective; there are definitely some damage sponges that can be in play at times.
Marvel Rivals expands on familiar ideas in smart ways and has a visually striking and distinct art style … add in that it’s a fun multiplayer experience and it makes it far more than just another also-ran hero shooter clone
Another aspect of team building are the team-ups, which grant extra abilities if certain characters are on the same team. Some are simple, like Adam Warlock granting certain Guardians of the Galaxy his passive ability to resurrect after dying, but some grant more interesting abilities. Psylocke and Black Panther can use Magik’s portals, letting them rewind a few seconds to a previous location, granting bonus health, which function like temporary shields. This adds another layer to their abilities and provides a simple way to identify good team compositions without needing to spend hours testing which heroes pair well together on a more granular level. The majority of these team-ups provide small bonuses, so you aren’t forced to play around them either.
The third-person gameplay feels precise and responsive, with abilities and projectiles behaving exactly how you want them to and being satisfying because of this. Abilities feel like they are constantly available to use, without resulting in full on ability spam, letting you feel like you are doing something engaging beyond just shooting at your opponents. Maps offer multiple paths to flank or get the high ground as well, letting you try a new approach each fight. At the same time, the maps don’t offer so many paths that it becomes too much to manage. Some heroes like Black Panther and Spider-Man zip around the battlefield, and it can feel like you’re fighting the camera a bit to keep track of them, but this issue does dissipate as you learn more about the flow of the game. Once you understand exactly what these characters can do and how far their movement takes them, it becomes easier to deal with their mobility. The gameplay is fast-paced and chaotic, but it does have strong readability thanks to the audio and visual designs.
Marvel Rivals’ art style is striking, with paint-like strokes on the characters combined with a slight cel-shading to create a distinct look that evokes comic books without being gimmicky. Not only does it make the game look great, but this kind of art style is necessary for Marvel Rivals to be playable. With 12 players frequently fighting each other, the screen can get busy, potentially making it difficult to identify and react to abilities, but the aesthetic maintains a level of clarity that is necessary. It also avoids the pitfalls of feeling like it’s a knockoff of the MCU, channeling a variety of comic looks and lore, while adding its own twists to designs to make it feel unique.
With the distinct look and animations for each character, you can quickly identify who you are looking at and what abilities they are using. Even with characters that have similar physical builds like Luna Snow, Dagger, and Mantis, each has distinct enough coloring and animations to make them easily identifiable at a glance. The recognizability of animations and silhouettes are just as important because of skins–which can alter how characters look slightly–especially as more elaborate and colorful skins are added in the future.
The audio design is a bit messier, although it does lean more on functionality than artistry. Characters are regularly shouting, calling out enemies or specific abilities, like Moon Knight placing an Ankh to ricochet attacks off of. These callouts make Marvel Rivals more manageable to play, especially with how powerful ultimate attacks are, but can become overwhelmingly noisy. Each character has a very loud shout for their ultimate, which is different depending on if they are friend or foe, allowing you to quickly react when these happen. It can be obnoxious sometimes, like Winter Soldier repeatedly shouting again on each ultimate retrigger, which can happen within seconds of each other, but it is important for managing the battlefield. Beyond shouting, many of the weapons and abilities have distinct sounds, reducing the amount of time you need to identify and react to an attack, which makes for a more competitive shooter.
With only two key differences, Marvel Rivals’ competitive mode doesn’t feel too different from quick play. First, payload maps have both teams play offense and defense, which is necessary for a fair match. Second, matches at Diamond rank and above allow for two to four heroes to be banned. While this is nice to limit some of the more powerful heroes, bans do narrow some of the strategy that makes Marvel Rivals so engaging. If you were locked into your pick for the whole match it might make more sense, but since you can swap at any time, it removes some necessary counter-picks that allow you to shift the momentum of a match. Instead of placements, you start at Bronze and have to work your way up, which does result in some bizarre matches in the lower ranks since players of all skill levels might be there depending on how much they have played.
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Marvel Rivals is free-to-play, meaning there are microtransactions, but its monetization is fairly standard in terms of pricing. All heroes are free, including future ones, and the only things to buy are cosmetics. Battle passes don’t expire, and while Marvel Rivals isn’t the first game to offer this, it is an uncommon but welcome practice. Knowing you won’t miss out on cosmetics in a battle pass you already paid for just because you don’t have time to play is a great quality-of-life feature. Cosmetics are pricey but not out of line with what’s seen in many other games, with legendaries coming in around $23 and epics coming in around $18. One upside is that, at least so far, Marvel Rivals is fairly selective with which skins are deemed legendary, with some surprisingly cool skins getting priced at the epic tier. The battle pass costs $10 and includes 10 skins and some premium currency, in addition to smaller cosmetics like sprays, MVP intros, and name plates making it a pretty great offer overall.
Overall, Marvel Rivals feels like the first hero shooter since Overwatch launched in 2015 to fully capture the magic of the genre. It offers a ton of heroes to play with, a great visual style, and a focus on making the game fun for everyone. While it does lift directly from Overwatch, its more original ideas make it feel fresh in the space. Marvel Rivals is a great multiplayer shooter in its early days, and if it can deliver on future updates, it could remain one for years to come.
