Marvel Rivals' roster continues to expand. Ever since its release back in December, NetEase Games has been constantly updating the hero shooter. Now, they're ready to up the ante by increasing the cadence in which they release heroes.
Season 1 introduced four heroes with the Fantastic Four. If you thought the release cadence was fast, it's about to get faster. But the question is, is it sustainable?
A Change of Pace
In a recent dev update for the upcoming season, game director Guangguang had confirmed, “After intensive internal discussion and thorough evaluations, we’ve decided that starting from Season 3, the seasons will shift to a two-month format with a new hero debuting each month.”
For context, the previously established format was for a season to last three months with the character drops happening every one and a half months. Season 1 had launched with Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman, and for the Season 1.5 update, they dropped the Human Torch and the Thing.
For now, it looks like Season 2 is going to be the final three-month season, but they’re dropping one character at a time now, with the launch giving players Emma Frost. The killer robot Ultron is now expected to come out halfway through the second season, hence NetEase decided to hold off on revealing more details about his character.
Can Marvel Rivals Keep This Up?
click to enlarge
+ 2Even before Marvel Rivals said they were releasing a hero a month, a lot of fans thought that their model of releasing heroes was too quick, and it could cause a problem for the studio down the line.
But it is worth noting, however, that there have been several leaked characters for Marvel Rivals that have been spotted by data miners, and this could mean that the devs have a stock of upcoming content that should release steadily for more than a year.
Characters that have been leaked so far include Captain Marvel, MODOK, Blade, Shuri, Angela (Thor’s Sister), Deadpool, Valkyrie, The Hood, Hit-Monkey, and Paste Pot Pete/Trapster. Not to mention there are also a bunch of incoming X-Men that have been rumoured; besides Emma Frost, it’s also said that there are plans for Cyclops, Jean Grey, Rogue, Beast, Nightcrawler, Jubilee, Gambit, and Professor X.
With 12 heroes expected every year, Rivals definitely has a lot of characters in the backburner that are already underway. There’s also the case of characters that haven’t been leaked. Fans are sure to want the game to complete the Guardians of the Galaxy roster. Plus there are also other groups to draw from the Magneto’s Brotherhood or Avengers offshoots like the Young Avengers or the Thunderbolts.
NetEase vs Blizzard
click to enlarge + 2If anything, NetEase has also been clear about their approach with character balancing. With their ‘Not as Anal as Blizzard’ approach, they’re promising to meet any unbalanced character traits with new characters that would balance them out—in lieu of just constantly changing character kits, which is pretty much Overwatch’s go-to fix.
It's not clear how long Rivals can keep this up, but it does seem like the devs were more than prepared when they launched the game; and they have a wealth of characters to mine in the future to guarantee a long life for this live-service hit.
Season 2 for Marvel Rivals starts April 11. Marvel Rivals is now playable for Xbox Series X|S, PC, and PS5.
For more articles like this, take a look at our Features and Marvel Rivals page.