For nigh on nine years, Activision Blizzard’s “Overwatch” has been king of the hill in the hero-shooter genre. Now their throne is being tested and some would say that the heir apparent in the genre is here.
“Marvel Rivals” came out on Dec. 6 and has been at the top of the gaming world ever since. Capitalizing on the popularity of Marvel in current pop culture, the game is a six-on-six fast-paced and competitive team shooter that has won over fans with nearly every decision made since launch.
For the uninitiated, the hero-shooter genre consists of unique characters sporting different roles that give each player a critical responsibility to the team. Marvel Rivals has 3 character roles: vanguard, duelist and strategist.
Vanguard consists of characters like Thor, Captain America and Venom that disrupt opposing teams and have the highest health in the game, helping teams with their ability to stay on the field and take up space.
Strategists like Rocket Raccoon, Loki and Invisible Woman hang back and manage the battlefield, healing teammates and making sure that any imminent threat is defended with their powerful and adaptable ultimate abilities.
Duelists focus on damage, never allowing the enemy team to take over the fight too soon. These characters are the highest in number and most popular in the game. Characters from all ends of Marvel, from Winter Soldier to Storm and Star-Lord to Squirrel Girl fill this role.
The game launched with 33 characters and opened the current competitive season by adding two more, Mister Fantastic and Invisible Woman, to bring the roster to 35. With their focus on allowing the competitive side of the game to develop naturally along with their desire to add a new character every 45 days, the developers at NetEase Games have won over a wide audience and their momentum is not slowing down
When talks arose of a “role queue,” which would force players into certain roles to keep teams balanced, the developers put out a statement saying that they did not plan on doing so as they wanted gamers to play whoever they wanted.
The game has been consistently in the top 10 games on Steam since launch, reaching an all-time peak of over 602,000 players on Steam alone, not including console players. This past weekend, the game peaked at over 400,000 concurrent players on Steam.
One draw for the competitive scene within the game is how ranking up in the games works, with almost two different metagames to work within. Players in Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum play freely, allowed to pick any character they deem will lead them to victory. This ends, however, once players reach Diamond.
In Diamond, GrandMaster, Celestial and Thereon, each team is allowed to ban two heroes from the field in each game, with no player being able to use the chosen banned hero. This forces players to learn new playstyles and characters, as a player that mainly plays Hulk may be underqualified for their rank if Hulk is not allowed on the field.
With bans keeping each game unique while also being locked to top-tier players, the game pushes players to always improve. Early after the game’s release, the player base seemed to decide that Wolverine was not a great character, and did not have much use. Today, Wolverine is one of the most banned characters in high ranks, with only a slight buff to his abilities in between.
The developers push teams to be very creative. The game holds within particular characters “team-up” abilities that allow for certain team compositions to gain new abilities. Thor, when combined with Storm or Captain America, allows for more offensive power from the latter pair, while the Scarlet Witch and Magneto partner for a devastating Father/Daughter combo.
Furthermore, combinations of abilities have further opened the playing field, with Thor’s ultimate ability occasionally being used in conjunction with Doctor Strange’s portals for players to create a devastating “rail gun” that can eliminate ill-prepared teams.
Groot’s ultimate ability pulls grouped-up players together, and when this is used in combination with Moon Knight’s devastating area-based ultimate ability, teams simply disappear. As the developers showed in a match played with popular Twitch streamers, the combos that teams can pull off are only limited by player creativity.
“Marvel Rivals” has reached the top of the gaming world, with seemingly nothing slowing down the momentum it has garnered. With two new heroes, The Thing and The Human Torch, set to enter the game in less than a month and an open tournament in early March that has reached the maximum team count, “Marvel Rivals” looks to maintain the success it has already achieved, and it is not slowing down.
