Before You Download: Marvel Rivals

Manny A

Dec 11, 2024 — 3 min read

NetEase Games dropped its highly anticipated project, Marvel Rivals, free for the PS5, Steam, and XBox. The 6v6 Hero Shooter (I said HERO SHOOTER) boasts an incredible starting roster of 33 heroes and villains in 3 classes: Vanguard (Tank), Duelist (DPS), and Strategist (Support). The overall response has been robust, and frankly, the most impressive thing about this game is that the servers held up the past two days. With its colorful art style and robust action introductions, NetEase Games has managed to build a game that will grasp your attention, but the number of flaws may plague its future success if they aren't corrected.

And when I mean flaws, I mean as great as the gameplay is with being able to play your favorite superhero and reap chaotic violence on your opponent, it still comes out as a bit of a mess if you don't know what you're doing. Multiply that with the players that DO know what they're doing and stick to some of the best characters in the game, like Iron Fist or Venom, and it can easily deter new players of the genre from continuing to play. But the biggest issue is that the game is incredibly unbalanced overall. With a support ult that can OCV your entire team to DPS practically melting TANKS despite their higher HP, the balancing issue is quite noticeable.

But on the other side of this argument is if everyone is broken, then no one is broken. And because it can be good for the casual gamer and bad for the highly competitive lot with now the addition of Competitive mode, who knows if, over time, a meta team is created (Remember GOATS? Good times), which may change the whole game entirely. I, unfortunately, have a lack of knowledge about games coming from NetEase outside of Naraka: Bladepoint, the Wuxia battle royale game, but from what I see, there are several things they can fix before the honeymoon phase is over that plagues all live service games.

If not for nothing, a

ROLE.

LOCK.

Should be looked into. Yes, it's fun to utilize your favorite Marvel character to wreck shop but in order for people to have a good level of fun there needs to be a way to balance the game so that it's measured of SOME level of skill level vs getting run THEE entire fuck over by 5 DPS's with a strong Support as they swarm on Thor who as a tank should have a HIGHER LEVEL OF SURVIVABILITY.

Marvel Rivals has the potential to be a fun and casual game for people not wanting the tactical skill levels of other hero shooters like Rainbow Six: Siege, and if this is the way NetEase wants their game to be played, they've done a great job. Everything outside of your low health warning seems incredibly over the top to keep you engaged. But to maintain longevity, they HAVE to tweak some of the game's obvious weaknesses.

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