Last week I managed to spend some time with Marvel Rivals, the next big PvP shooter designed to compete (excuse the pun) with games like Overwatch and the like. Marvel is obviously a license to print money and generally you can put Marvel branding on anything these days and you know it’s going to do well to some extent. Of course there’s also a certain element of burnout. People are just a bit sick of Marvel because let’s face it, it’s everywhere.
NetEase Games doesn’t care about any of this and has set out to make a really great third-person PvP shooter. I have to use Overwatch as a comparison, because it’s basically Overwatch with a Marvel skin. Well, sort of.
The main difference is the switch from first to third person, and to be honest, it feels a lot better. Overwatch was littered with fancy skins that you only saw at key moments during the game. In Rivals, you see them all the time, which, if you’re spending money to see those skins, is a pretty big deal.
The starting lineup is already pleasingly large, and many of your favorite Marvel characters are included. Some of the more well-known characters like Iron Man, Hulk, and Thor are included, but there are also some lesser-known characters, which is nice, like Jeff the baby land shark and Luna Snow.
I’ve probably invested fifteen to twenty hours in Rivals so far and I still haven’t managed to play through all the characters, although I’ve tried to give the ones I’ve tried plenty of time. Surprisingly, even though I’m a fan of the big green guy, Storm, the goddess of thunder, quickly became my main character. I just loved her ability to stay in the air and hurl the elements at enemies from above. And when she uses her ultimate ability, oh boy, does it get chaotic. I’ve regularly taken out at least three to four enemies at once in one fell swoop.
So yeah, similar to Overwatch, ultimate abilities play a big role in games as they build up over the course of the game and are then used at key moments to wrest control away from the enemy team. Most of them seem very well designed and perfect for the character performing them. One of my favorites was Magik, who transforms into the Darkchylde version of herself when activating her ultimate and deals more damage with her attacks and abilities. Hulk’s ultimate works differently and is really brilliant. It works in stages; he starts as Banner and can activate his ult immediately from the start to “Hulk out”. Then when he recharges the ultimate, he can Hulk out even further and transform into Monster Hulk, an even stronger version. In this mode, he gets an ultimate called World Breaker, where he performs an attack on a single enemy like you might have seen in a popular Avengers movie. It’s really awesome!
During the Gamescom beta, NetEase brought two new characters into the game, Captain America and the Winter Soldier. Cap felt like he should, quite defensive and a great support for the team. In one of the games I had with him, our team pinned the enemy to their spawn point. Maybe we got lucky, but I felt Cap’s leadership skills helped. Winter Soldier, on the other hand, feels very strong. A bit too strong at the moment. His ultimate can be triggered multiple times and feels very oppressive. I’m not too worried about this now, as there are only a little over three months left until release, so he can be adjusted by then, but if he’s released in this state… we’re all in trouble.
He’s not the only character that needs to be adjusted, as some feel like automatic inclusions in team lineups and it would be nice to see a bit more variety. I’ve lost track of the number of Venoms and Doctor Stranges I’d see on opposing teams.
As far as game modes go, you’d think you were playing Overwatch. That’s pretty stark, but I’ll be honest, they pull it off well. It’s blatantly similar, but it works so well and, dare I say, it’s done better here. Of course, it could use a little fine-tuning to make sure things like the overtime mechanic don’t last forever, but other than that, it’s pretty much there.
The other big question everyone is asking is how this game will be monetized. Right now we don’t know. During the two betas, a battle pass system was introduced that lets you unlock new cool skins for characters. Blizzard was so aggressive with monetization that the fanbase had enough. Corporate greed won out at Blizzard and now players have to pay £20 and more for skins of their favorite heroes.
Nothing has been announced about Marvel Rivals yet, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed that NetEase doesn’t get too greedy, because Rivals has the potential to be great and poor monetization practices can ruin the experience. Time will tell, but as always, I remain hopeful.
Right now, Marvel Rivals could be taking up a lot of my time. I can’t wait to get back into it, and December 6th can’t come soon enough.
