Feb. 3, 2025
By Lucy Cardona
Editor
Destroying enemies and climbing the ranks makes Marvel Rivals a thrilling game. Whether playing alone or with friends, it’s fun to be in the heart of a chaotic but satisfying game. Created by Marvel and NetEase Games, the game launched on Dec. 6, 2024. The player base has over 400,000 members almost daily, reflecting a strong and dedicated community actively participating. This free game is available to anyone with a PS5 Xbox, Series X and those with a PC that can run Steam.
This game is a six-on-six third-person hero shooter. Depending on the game’s five modes, two teams try to control an objective or destroy people. The three modes are Convoy, Convergence and Domination.
Users can play one of three roles: Duelists, Strategists and Vanguards. Vanguards are healthier characters who aim to push or defend the point of attack as a solid wall of defensive might. Duelists are characters whose primary focus is dealing with damage and killing the opponent. Most of the characters have low health but deal bursts of damage that overwhelm the opponent. Lastly, and most crucial to the team, are the Strategists who heal or provide power boosts to the team so it can stay alive and take down the other team.
Exploring the game is fun and contains iconic faces from the Marvel comics brand, such as Captain America, Hulk, Iron Man and Thor. However, it also has more niche characters from the comics, such as Jeff the Land Shark, Peni Parker and Psylocke.
Taking the persona of a favorite childhood character adds to the game’s fun and nostalgia. These niche characters also allow players to explore new characters from the franchise that they have never seen, exploring their backgrounds and personalities while vanquishing their enemies.
If players want more challenge, they can try a competitive mode, which is unlocked when an account reaches Level 10. After this, the account goes to the lowest tier in the rankings, Bronze 3. As players win matches, they gain points that count toward their rank and then rank up.
There are a total of six ranks, with Bronze 3 being the lowest and One Above All being the highest rank achievable. This ranked mode allows players to take their matches more seriously and play more fairly against players with similar skill sets.
If players want more challenge, they can try a competitive mode, which is unlocked when an account reaches Level 10.
The team at NetEase Games and Marvel Games also releases seasonal events that last about three months. These also offer a battle pass that can be purchased with real money for cosmetics. However, users can earn free cosmetics by completing daily, weekly or seasonal challenges to earn Chrono tokens.
Marvel Rivals can sometimes be frustrating since some of the heroes are blatantly stronger than others. For example, the duelist Hawkeye is significantly better than Black Widow due to his ability to kill much faster than her, even though they are meant to fill similar roles of working in the backline and sniping their opponents. This does not mean certain characters aren’t viable, but it takes more effort to get a grasp on them than others.
These themes also have game modes exclusive to the season, such as the Season Zero Winter celebration event featuring Jeff. Two teams of four can use the character’s water spray attack to paint the ground. The team that sprays the most ground wins. During Season 1, the game features a soccer-like event in which players try to push a ball into a goal and use their abilities to steal it from each other and score.
Marvel Rivals is easy to learn. However, it provides hours of entertainment, as users can create communities around strategies for playing certain characters and winning game modes more easily.
This game is addictive because it makes players want to climb the ranks and keep winning. It is a solid 9/10 game for its genius gameplay and lovable cast, but it loses a point for occasionally frustrating balance changes.
This is the Eternal Night Falls Season 1 loading screen.
SCREENSHOTS BY LUCY CARDONA
