Marvel Rivals Hands-On - Not There Yet

Last weekend at Summer Game Fest I played Marvel Rivals for the first time. For those who don’t know, this is an upcoming team hero shooter where everyone plays as an iconic Marvel character. The game includes characters like Iron Man, the Hulk, Black Panther, and Spider-Man. Then the roster gets more interesting with X-Men characters like Storm and Magneto, and Guardians of the Galaxy like Groot and Rocket. Then some characters I was not familiar with like Luna Snow and Magik. The simplest way to describe this game is Overwatch but with Marvel heroes.

Strangely, I do feel like somewhat of an odd one out when talking about this game. That may be partly because some creators unknowingly signed an egregiously restrictive contract banning negative reviews. Thankfully NetEase remedied those contracts last month after the news broke. This may give you a hint as to my impressions. Based on my brief experience, Marvel Rivals has some compelling ideas, but I did not have fun as I did with Overwatch when it launched.

Marvel Rivals, NetEase, 2024

Let’s get one thing out of the way right now, Overwatch (or Overwatch 2, whatever they are calling it these days) has had a serious fall from grace. Allowing access to all heroes earlier this year was a smart decision, but Overwatch will never reach the heights of its success in 2016, and I won’t be playing it as much as I did either. Marvel Rivals, on the other hand, does have some great things going for it. It’s new, it will be free-to-play at launch, and perhaps the biggest draw of all, it’s packed with popular Marvel characters that everyone is already familiar with (for the most part). But something about the gameplay still doesn’t feel right.

Marvel Rivals is a team hero shooter. This means that players will form groups online of five and take on other groups of five to attack or defend an objective from the other players. In my hands-on demo, my team was trying to prevent the other team from escorting a spider-like vehicle through city streets. The vehicle would progress if none of my team was standing nearby. This is not anything new. Marvel Rivals distinguishes itself in a few ways, one way is destructible environments, though, in my experience, this didn’t come into play very often. I’m sure that someone much better at hero shooters than me could make full use of this mechanic in some way, but it felt more like a surprising happenstance than anything else.

Marvel Rivals, NetEase, 2024

The other distinguishing feature is team-up abilities. Certain characters have useful powers that can be combined to be even more effective. This doesn’t work with every combination of characters, so it is important to coordinate hero selection with your teammates. Currently, the team-ups are a fun addition but could be more engaging. Everyone will recognize the iconic movie moment when Rocket jumps on Groot’s back, but all it does is reduce incoming damage for Rocket. Several other abilities also grant temporary buffs to teammates or allow them to do more damage. They are fun, but I expected them to be more climactic and epic than they were in the game. Maybe it was just because it was a short demo that I didn’t get the full experience.

The team-ups, if a little underwhelming, are a great concept. The Marvel characters, both the unknowns and the classics, are the perfect roster to build on. I can already imagine adding other characters like Hawkeye, Captain America, Black Widow, Thor, Shang-Chi, Rogue, and Blade, just to name a few. This is a huge catalog of heroes that the developers can pull from for years to keep this game fresh and exciting. But the one thing that didn’t sell me on Marvel Rivals, was how it felt to play.

Marvel Rivals, NetEase, 2024

Most of the characters, even the ones that I thought would feel more nimble and agile like Spider-Man or Black Panther, felt slow and clunky just walking around the map. Fights are chaotic and overwhelming, so respawning and taking the time to slowly lumber back to the fight was like being dunked in cold water. Maybe an appropriate way to encourage players to avoid being taken down, but it’s going to happen at least a few times per game on average. Then there are the fights themselves. They can easily get a little overwhelming when you don’t know what’s going on. But if I could change one thing it would be to lower the amount of voice lines the characters use. It often feels like everyone is trying to say something at once.

Marvel Rivals, NetEase, 2024

Overall, Marvel Rivals seems to be set up for success. Even if the Marvel movies haven’t been as huge lately as they have been, it doesn’t stop Marvel from being a huge brand name. Plus, with all the success Marvel video games have been having over the last few years, it shouldn’t be hard to draw in players. With huge Marvel games announced like Insomniac’s Wolverine and Arkane’s Blade, it feels like a slam dunk to coincide bringing those characters to Rivals around the time that their respective game launches. So yes, I don’t think there will be any trouble bringing players to the game, it’s just a matter of how long it can keep them interested.

Thanks to NetEase for the opportunity to try out Marvel Rivals. What do you think of this game? Will you play it when it releases? Why or why not? What other characters should they add? Marvel Rivals does not have a release date yet, but when it does launch it will be free to play on Xbox Series S & X, PlayStation 5, and PC via Steam.