Following the collaboration announced by Marvel and NetEase five years ago, NetEase unveiled the Overwatch-like competitive 6 versus 6 third-person shooter game Marvel Rivals.
Ahead of the Closed Beta test, which will run from July 23 to August with the following content (Characters: Adam Warlock, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Groot, Hela, Hulk, Iron Man, Loki, Luna Snow, Magik, Magneto, Mantis, Namor, Peni Parker, Punisher, Rocket Raccoon, Star-Lord, Storm, Scarlet Witch, Spider-Man, and Venom; Maps: Yggsgard: Yggdrasill Path, Yggsgard: Royal Palace, Tokyo 2099: Shin-Shibuya, and Tokyo 2099: Spider-Islands; Modes: Convoy, Domination, and Convergence), we interviewed Executive Producer Danny Koo and Game Director Thad Sasser at Summer Game Fest 2024.
With the roster being as diverse as it is, I was curious – what was your design philosophy for choosing roles for each character?
Danny Koo: First of all, we know Marvel characters are iconic, so there are certain expectations fans expect out of the characters. So, we picked the three most important things about the characters if we were to represent them in the game. Once we identify them, then we’ll pair the skills and assign the role after. The entire Marvel Rivals roster kind of consists of about 70 percent fan favorite, greatest pitch, and we’ll throw in some curveball on the rest. For some players, this game might be their first time learning about these characters. Since this is a global game, and it’s on PC and consoles, everyone gets exposure to this diverse cast of characters.
Did you think about possibly doing an alternate version of the characters, like Iron Man in a different role?
Thad Sasser: I don’t think we’ve really kind of thought about that. I think the way we think about it is, as Danny said, the first and most important thing is really the character, right? Representing the iconic nature of that character, finding those three things that are true to it. And then the class or the role kind of comes later. You might see, and I’m not saying there is or there isn’t, but you might see a character completely shift their power set based on events that happened in the narrative that we tell as the game evolves.
Maybe this character had a change in their circumstances. Things have changed for them and now they’re a different type of play experience. That would be the kind of thing we would love to experiment with and get player feedback on. So, we’d love to hear more ideas like that.
Danny Koo: Yeah, a lot of players in the hero shooter genre got used to the notion of tank, DPS, and support. But in Marvel Rivals, we take it further because Marvel heroes don’t hang in the back; they’re just clashing. So there are hybrid roles that a lot of characters have. That’s why we have Vanguard, Duelists, and Strategists, which can turn the tide of the battle.
Thad Sasser: And those are less about a hard role and more about kind of like almost the gameplay style or choice. The Vanguard is gonna jump into the midst of the enemies, while the Duelists are going to maneuver up and stay in close combat, keep the pressure on, and the Strategists are trying to figure out how can I disrupt, how can I buff my party or debuff the enemy.
Some of the characters might even currently, in their current state, be able to do some of these jobs that they’re not necessarily the best at, but they can still kind of move around a little bit. So there’s a little bit more flexibility than a rigid class definition, which you might be used to.
Danny Koo: There’s the synergy skills as well. When Rocket jumps on Groot, it becomes like a giant tank with a machine gun.
A lot of online games tend to feature a Prime or powered-up version of a particular character. Would Marvel Rivals experiment with stuff like Ultimate Spider-Man?
Danny Koo: I know there are a bunch of opinions among friends that this Spider-Man or that Spider-Man is the best. There are so many opportunities for us to do stuff like a different costume or maybe introduce a different voice line. But we haven’t announced all this detail in terms of costumes and variance yet. We want each main playable character to have a different playstyle.
Do you consider the costumes to be more like a seasonal reward or something that players can unlock as an additional skin?
Danny Koo: We haven’t announced the monetization mechanism or anything yet. But I can tell you that during the Alpha, players do quests to get currency to unlock skins and costumes. We have those in the Alpha, and we look forward to that in beta as well.
How can players customize the identity of the characters in Marvel Rivals? Some games have emotes, voice lines, or sprays that players can customize. What sort of options are there in this game?
Thad Sasser: Yes, we know that’s important to players and we’ll have some options. We’re not going to talk about the details yet, but in the Alpha we did have the spray.
Danny Koo: It’s pretty standard in Alpha, but we have a few surprises in store for later.
As the roster grows over time, would you consider adding a pick-and-ban system to the hero list?
Thad Sasser: Yeah, I think that kind of feature would be something we’d be looking for feedback from the community, right? Is this something that’s required that the community thinks is best in a competitive playlist, for example? Or is this a casual mode thing? Or should it apply everywhere? And that kind of thing would be something we would talk about and, you know, we’ll have an opportunity to try these things out and see what the feedback is, really, before we go wide with it.
Danny Koo: Ultimately, we build this game for the community, not for us. I have a different opinion than all these guys. But, you know, we want to take care of the community. They’re going to spend time on this game, so we might as well ask hey, what do you guys want?
How are you going to support Marvel Rivals at the eSports level?
Danny Koo: We want to make this game, first and foremost, the best-in-class PvP. We’re not even thinking about eSports. Once we establish a strong foundation for the community, I think this will grow organically instead of forcibly.
Is there a spectator mode for players who want to run tournaments, build an orbit around them, and watch the action without being players?
Danny Koo: Yes, that is already in the game. There is a spectator mode, and we have a custom game in there, where players can play a custom game however they want with anybody. We have cross-region play as well, where players can invite their friends internationally and play with each other. After each match, there’s a reason why we put the entire team up instead of focusing on one MVP. You get to check the highlights of everyone who plays on your team to share the glory.
Which platforms are you planning to launch Marvel Rivals on?
Danny Koo: Right now, we announced PC, Xbox, and PlayStation 5.
Are you talking about cross-platform play between them?
Danny Koo: Yes, and we’ll be cross-play in beta as well.
Okay. How about cross-progression? Are you implementing a NetEase profile so that if someone unlocks something on a PC, they can carry it to PlayStation?
Thad Sasser: To be decided. As you can imagine, that’s extremely complicated to pull off, so we’re still looking into it. We’ve heard that the audience has already suggested this several times, so we’re looking into it.
Are you implementing rollback netcode or something of that sort to help stabilize online connection for players?
Thad Sasser: Well, the stability and the quality of the online connection are very important for us, so we’ll have a number of different systems. I don’t necessarily have all the technical details at the moment, but that is definitely a big concern for us because low latency and high-quality gameplay are some of the things that make a game fun: feeling comfortable with the controls and feeling comfortable with the experience is very important, and we recognize that as a priority for us.
Danny Koo: That’s why we are going to have North America, Europe, and other regions in the beta that we haven’t announced yet. I can tell you from the Alpha within the North American region that the ping is very stable, so we’re happy about that now. But the more testing, the better.
As far as the breadth of content you guys can pull from, is there anything that’s off-limits for Marvel Rivals?
Thad Sasser: Anything is possible.
Danny Koo: We have over 9,000 characters in Marvel. 85 years of Marvel history. But when we put a character in there, it has to be with a reason, not just because. Any character has to relate to the lore and the story as well as the other characters on the existing roster. This is a Marvel Universe game, and we want to have a roster of characters from the Avengers, the Guardians of the Galaxy, and the X-Men. We don’t want it to just be an Avengers or an X-Men game; we want it to have everybody in it.
Is there any sort of playable narrative mode? Or is it mostly competing in matches against each other?
Danny Koo: We’re focusing on PvP. But, within the map, within the voice dialogues, within the bios they can unlock, it’s very detailed on what the story is, and the player can piece it together. Like, for example, in the map that you played (Odin’s Palace), there’s one starting point where you can see a family portrait.
What’s going on there? And then, and then you get a hint of, like, what the map looks like with a giant battle plan at the starting point. And that’s like a little, little sprinkle to slowly tell the story. In the Odin Palace, some destructible get reconstructed, and there’s a reason why: Loki is the king, and that’s his illusion. In other maps, there are also different ways in which destructible environments tell a story.
Thad Sasser: This will tie into things like the game modes as well, right? The Payload object might be different based on the context and what it is that you’re doing.
For objective modes like Payload, is each map going to kind of have the same objectives each time you play through or will it pull random objectives for each round?
Danny Koo: The maps are very specific because they are tuned for that particular game mode, but each map does support multiple game modes. So, if you play best of seven, then you will not see like your regular mode. There will be certain expectations of objectives within.
Are you talking about accessibility options, such as high-contrast character profile models, like Black Panther in a darker environment, which might be hard to spot for some players?
Thad Sasser: Yes, accessibility is a key issue for us. In fact, we want this game to be very accessible and we are looking at several levels of accessibility. Not just whether users can understand this and learn it and master it, but also what if you’re colorblind? What if you’re hard of hearing? What can we do to help all different types of players? How many different types of players can we get in here? We’d love it if every player could enjoy Marvel Rivals. That said, obviously, there are practical limits to what we can accomplish, but it’s important to us.
Danny Koo: Yeah, we would never have an overly dark environment. Even I couldn’t. I don’t have to be disabled to want that. We wanted it to be a very colorful, vibrant, and inviting environment. And then, of course, some people can’t see red. And we support controller mode on PC, also for the people who can’t use keyboard and mouse. We even have alternative controller styles.
Overall, the character models are very contrasted. They have colors that pop compared to the environments, which are much more muted, so it’s easy to recognize the action from afar.
Thad Sasser: That’s intentional, as we spend a lot of time looking at that. How visible are these characters in this environment? And we’re continually tweaking that. In fact, not that long ago, we made some changes to increase the visibility of characters in environments. We have some tricks we’re doing now.
I know you guys have another closed test coming up. How is your test schedule shaping up for the inevitable launch?
Danny Koo: It depends on the result of the closed beta. We might not do another beta if it’s great, right? Otherwise, we might do another round of beta. So, we don’t know yet. Right now, we’re focusing on beta. But we got a lot of feedback from the Alpha where people said, why don’t you launch it right now? It’s already done. We were like, no, no, no. No, it’s not done. The job’s not finished.
That was an ongoing discussion on our Discord. By the way, if you’re not on our Discord, we have a community of over 230K users. If the game is not ready, it’s not ready. But when it is, we’re definitely looking forward to announcing this news to everybody.
Thad Sasser: We have the closed beta coming up at the end of July, which we’ll discuss more shortly.
Is the closed beta going to be PC only or will it also include consoles?
Thad Sasser: It’ll be available on all three platforms: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S|X, and PC.
Danny Koo: Players can wishlist the game on Steam right now, and they’ll receive a notification when they can join the beta.
Are you planning to do any pre-purchase or founder pack bonuses that you can talk about for Marvel Rivals?
Danny Koo: The beta is going to be free for everybody. We’re not doing anything extra on top of that.
What’s on the table for post-launch content for Marvel Rivals, whether it’s characters, maps, or modes? What are you guys looking at?
Thad Sasser: Yes. The answer is yes. What does the audience want? What needs are not being met, or what do they want to see more of? What’s working really well? We’ll have to check all these things.
Alright, well, thank you all so very much for your time.
