Marvel Rivals has been a blast so far during its closed beta. NetEase’s take on the Overwatch hero shooter space is nothing if not an interesting alternative. In a time when many players and content creators speak of being burned out on Overwatch 2, Marvel Rivals is hitting just at the right time to get people back in and experiencing the chaos of a new entry in the genre.
People remain nostalgic for the early days of Overwatch, where everyone was still learning how to play, metas were looser, and an ever-improving audience didn’t have months or years of knowledge. Now, even in relatively low-level play, there’s an inherent understanding of how the game works and should be played. For those looking to vibe out and play completely for fun, like when it launched in 2016 – that experience basically doesn’t exist anymore.
That’s why, ultimately, Overwatch can never go back to where it was – no matter if it readopts 6v6 or not. Marvel Rivals is now in that period though where everyone is largely running around, trying to figure it out, but mostly, having fun. Often, you hear complaints like, “Overwatch was better when it wasn’t as sweaty and competitive play took over.” That’s what Marvel Rivals feels like right now. That can’t last forever though.
It ain’t broke – yet
The thing about honeymoon periods is they eventually end. Once they do, that’s where real issues and longevity are figured out. I worry for Marvel Rivals in that period.
With time, players staying engaged with a game are going to get better. Hard metas will develop as most people are going to be playing to win. Vibing out in the chaos can only go on for so long because, eventually, a playerbase is going to recognize patterns and understand what’s strong. As much as people want things not to get too serious – inevitably, they will. If you willfully try to ignore all that, you’ll just be steamrolled by other teams. That’s not fun either.
The problem Marvel Rivals has is that its characters have a lot of abilities that are seriously overturned and play like the greatest hits of what people hated in Overwatch’s history. At the moment, NetEase seems to be taking a ‘if everything is broken, nothing is broken’ approach to character design. This is busted fun right now, but once people start trying to play it semi-seriously, it’s easy to see that turning into frustration.
Age of Ult-tron
To illustrate the point, here are some examples of ridiculously strong abilities that are in Marvel Rivals – and their Overwatch counterparts that have been problematic in the past.
Scarlet Witch’s Dark Seal is a stun that acts almost like three Brigitte bashes, one after the other (and it can be deployed at range). Loki’s Regeneration Domain acts like a Baptiste Immortality Field, but not only can you not die, you get healed by taking damage in it. Rocket Racoon’s C.Y.A ultimate is essentially an old Orisa bongo that amplifies the damage to anyone it can see. I could name a couple more examples, but you get the idea.
That’s only the ones that have Overwatch correlations too. There are several that can make you lose complete control of your character. Jeff the Shark can eat you up and walk around with you in his belly. Doctor Strange can completely immobilize enemies with his Eye of Agamotto. Groot’s Strangling Prison locks players in place, taking damage over time.
This game is laden with these abilities that have proven problematic to the health of Overwatch. Many can revive your kills or make you lose control of your character, so much so that they are the backbone of Marvel Rivals’ combat flow.
That’s fine conceptually. Marvel Rivals is a brawlier kind of game with long team fights that are more about ability usage and expending the enemy’s resources than sheer aim or mechanical skill. That’s its identity. However, as players get good with these abilities and begin to rotate them properly, it could quickly get out of hand.
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We saw this in Overwatch – and the results were maddening. Hell, I’ve seen it start to happen in Marvel Rivals with another ghost from Overwatch’s past – double shield. In one game I played, I went up against Magneto and Doctor Strange. They clearly played together as they’d constantly rotate their shields, making it impossible for my team to do sustained damage. We lost. That’s not all, though, as Marvel Rivals has a potentially bigger ability problem looming in its future.
Some assembly required
Team-up abilities are a cool idea in concept. Marvel Superheroes team up more than they fight alone, so it would make sense that they would have benefits for one another. This manifests in abilities such as Spider-Man and Penni Parker getting Symbiote powers when working with Venom. Black Panther can teleport when fighting alongside Magik. Rocket and Jeff can ride on Groot giving them damage resistance. Those are all fun, cute ideas that really feed into the Marvel flavor.
However, some are also straight-up busted. Starlord and Mantis, when playing with an Adam Warlock can flat-out revive themselves. The enemy team can see them, and potentially try to mark the revive, but in the heat of battle, both can generally get behind a corner somewhere and come straight back. Elsewhere Hela can revive a dead Thor and Loki by landing a final blow on an enemy. For a character as lethal as her, and with how hard it can be to kill tanks, that is a ridiculously strong passive power.
More than that, though, this idea also forces compositions in awkward ways. Players may feel forced to play heroes to match up with their teammates. That or certain line-ups will inherently have a higher bar to viability than those NetEase is forcing into the game. If you are playing with a great Hela, you may have a hard time justifying playing anything other than a Thor and Loki, so you can benefit from the revive.
So, while role lock isn’t a thing in Marvel Rivals, the compositions are already artificially encouraged to be restricted. This is not just by the amount of Vanguards, Duelists, and Strategists you have on the team, but also down to the exact characters you’re playing. That’s even before you get to the role lock discussion, and as I’ve played several games with one healer and five DPS – it’s something that already feels sorely needed.
Crab-tain America
It’s easy to get excited about Marvel Rivals’ current state, especially when considering some Overwatch 2 fatigue. It feels like a viable hero shooter back in its early stages. There’s no role queue! Abilities are busted! No one knows how to play! It’s just fun!
As I’ve cautioned, though, that can only last so long — and with an Overwatch literate audience, I expect that honeymoon period to be much shorter than Blizzard’s initially was. Abilities will be reigned in. The team-up abilities will need to be looked at. I don’t foresee a future where role lock isn’t implemented at some point. Overwatch didn’t nerf outlier abilities and limit team composition options for funsies. They turned out to be fundamental problems with the game that became apparent as players became more familiar with the title.
Carcinization is a process in the natural world where different groups of animals convergently evolve into the same traits. This most commonly takes the shape of crustaceans, especially crabs. Given enough time, everything evolves into a crab. In this labored analogy, Overwatch’s current state is a crab, and I expect, given time, Marvel Rivals will design itself into the same solutions that Overwatch did. Things like role lock and the lessening of crowd control were implemented because they were the best solutions to complex problems. Marvel Rivals hasn’t got to the point yet where it needs to evolve into these traits – but it feels almost inevitable that that point will come.
None of this is to say Marvel Rivals can’t have a future. It’s the most promising entry in this genre outside of Overwatch, maybe ever. Add the Marvel brand recognition and you have something that really has legs. However, I expect it to experience many of the growing pains Blizzard had to struggle through with Overwatch.
In the meantime, though, it’s absolutely worth enjoying this honeymoon period while it lasts. The game has great elements and feels like the first genuine competition to Overwatch. It’s likely not a death knell for Blizzard’s shooter some predicted, but it’s a solid alternative that brings some genuinely worthwhile ideas to the table. Just don’t expect its early glow to last forever.