Overwatch had established the gold standard for hero shooters (sorry, Team Fortress 2), and there have been several ‘clones’ over the years including Paladins and Valorant. Now Marvel and NetEase have teamed up to give us their own hero shooter, but this time with highly recognizable Marvel heroes and villains.
Check out the official reveal for Marvel Rivals:
Introducing Marvel Rivals, the premier Super Hero Team-based PVP Shooter!
Assemble your favorite Marvel characters and engage in 6v6 battles, utilizing brand-new Team-Up Skills in destructible locations from across the Marvel Multiverse!
The Closed Alpha test is coming this May!
The announce doesn’t really go into heavy details, but the game has been confirmed to be free-to-play, and we are expected to see more heroes added to the roster as time goes by. Though there is already an established roster of heroes and villains which include Iron Man, Hulk, Loki, and Magik, it’s also been confirmed that we’re also going to get Storm, Star-Lord, Mantis, Punisher, Magneto, and Scarlet Witch down the line.
Though you don’t need a story to enjoy a hero shooter game, NetEase does give us a backdrop for Rivals and how these heroes have found themselves tangling with each other:
Marvel Rivals features a storyline crafted by the NetEase writing team where the merciless clash between the tyrannical dictator Doctor Doom and his future counterpart from the year 2099 has forced countless universes to collide in the Timestream Entanglement, creating new worlds and crises still unknown. Now, Super Heroes and Super Villains from across the multiverse must fight together and against one another as disparate groups seek to defeat both Dooms before one achieves domination of these realities. Familiar faces become newfound foes while former enemies become the greatest of allies in Marvel Rivals!
With Overwatch 2 currently getting bashed by the online community, a lot have been teasing that Rivals would be the game that would ‘murder’ OW2, but we’ll just have to wait and see. NetEase may be considered Blizzard’s rival, but they have been criticized for having too many microtransactions within their games. Even Overwatch 2 has already started pivoting their model to have all heroes come for free.
No official release date has been announced for Marvel Rivals, but the Closed Alpha is set to launch this May.
