Marvel Rivals quickly became one of the most popular games of 2024 despite being released so late in the year. It reached a peak player count of 644,269 on Steam, not to mention console players from Xbox and Playstation. Immediately media attention and positive reviews flooded the game on many platforms. The game still has a lot of influence on social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. It even reached record-breaking viewers on Twitch’s streaming platform, with 404,413 concurrent viewers. Today, Marvel Rivals has a solid 9/10 rating on multiple platforms, and for good reason.
Marvel Rivals at its core is an objective-based 6 vs. 6 team game. There are a few main game modes to play like payload and point capture which are the main two ways to create a familiar platform. Limited-time playing modes are also available, which spice up the quality of the game month by month. Being able to play as your favorite Marvel characters, such as Spider-Man, Iron Man, or Wolverine, is the cherry on top. Each character’s unique move sets and playstyles attract players to the game and encourage them to keep playing.
Many players of the game immediately compared it to Overwatch 2 which was released in October of 2022. Both games have many similarities, with the core gameplay being team and objective-based. Some characters also have similar playstyles, such as Iron Man and Hawkeye, who are similar to Overwatch 2’s Pharaoh and Hanzo. However, one significant advantage is that Marvel Rivals’ active developer team has the potential to adjust aspects of the game that Overwatch 2 players dislike.
One critique of Overwatch 2 is the role queue system. Role queue is the specific assignment to different types of characters such as a damage dealer, healer, or tank. Thankfully there is no role queue in Marvel Rivals. This creates the opportunity for new team dynamics like varying amounts of tanks or healers.
The balancing of characters is also an issue that Overwatch 2 players complain about. If you read the game’s patch notes, the balancing of characters is a lot of changes in health pools, cooldowns, damage, etc. Despite all the changes, some characters are always significantly stronger or weaker than others. Marvel Rivals with their first patch notes was able to take weaker characters like Hulk and Storm and have them become one of the better characters in the game. Not only that, but they took stronger characters like Black Panther and Doctor Strange and had them become more balanced. This just goes to show how well the Marvel Rivals developer team can identify issues and adjust them accordingly.
