Marvel Rivals

(available for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and PC. PS5 version used for this review)

Marvel Rivals is a new 5v5 shooter, very much in the guise of Overwatch, and it comes at a time where Overwatch has had a steep decline in popularity, and when many live service games are failing miserably- like the previously reviewed Concord, which did so disastrously that a mere week after the review came out, the game was no longer purchasable and access to the game was completely cut off, so that review is entirely pointless now.

Marvel Rivals comes in with some advantages, mainly that it obviously has Marvel characters to work with. Not every single one of your favourites will be here, but there are 33 characters to choose from! What’s good is that Disney didn’t really restrict what characters the developers could choose- I was expecting them to restrict it to just characters in the MCU, but there are plenty of characters outside of that. Most notably, they haven’t done what they did with Marvel vs Capcom Infinite and cut out all of the X-Men characters.

The word was strong with the Beta tests that took place, but now I can officially say that Marvel Rivals is a very good game. It definitely has a lot of different play styles for people to play with, and if you’re used to Overwatch, you could definitely jump into this with no problem, the only difference being that Overwatch is first person, and this game is in third person.

Frankly, I think that they did a very good job updating a genre that hasn’t been doing very well in recent memory, though I do have a few issues with the game.

PROS

• Choice of Characters

I mentioned previously that there are 33 to choose from and not all of them are from the MCU, but there are a few notable missing characters. This game has already been rather successful, so I suspect that we will be getting more down the line. The Fantastic 4 aren’t here for example, and neither is Daredevil, and weirdly you’d think Disney would want to promote the character considering the new film this year, but Deadpool isn’t here! One of his side characters from the comic is though and has become my main to play (that being Jeff the Land Shark).

But the selection is actually quite good! As mentioned, Jeff is a bizarre and out-there choice, but it’s good that he’s here. They managed to get some obscure characters like Cloak and Dagger and Moon Knight (who was obscure until recently), and some Guardians of the Galaxy here too, like Star-Lord, Rocket Raccoon, but weirdly Gamora and Drax are missing.

You obviously have the main Avengers here too, like Captain America, Hulk, Thor, Black Widow, and Hawkeye. As previously mentioned, the X-Men are here too!

What’s great is that the selection of characters all has unique move sets, and despite the way they look, the move sets can surprise you. For example, Penny Parker from the Spider Verse is in the game, and she plays completely differently to what I was expecting her to be, a complete clone of D’VA from Overwatch. I would urge you to give each character a try, you’ll definitely find a character that’s to your liking.

I would say though, if you want good characters for new players, I recommend picking The Punisher, Jeff the Land Shark, or Wolverine. If you pick Ironfist because you want to get the cheapest kills in the game, just know that I hate you.

• Gameplay

While it’s not incredibly innovative, since again it’s very clear that Overwatch played a big part in the idea for this game, it does still play very well and certainly feels a bit more balanced than Overwatch in recent memory.

Rather like Overwatch, you’re going to be doing only a few different kinds of gameplay, there’s one where you try and take control of a specific part of a map, an escort mode, you get the idea. But again, it reminds me of how good Overwatch was back in the day. I can’t fault it for that.

The controls are very easily manageable, considering how complex some of the characters are, I thought that the button layout might end up causing more confusion, but I personally found it easy to get the hang of. I found it difficult to get control of the flight-based characters like Iron Man, and while that was an issue in Overwatch for me, I do also accept that it only really affects me. I’ve seen plenty of people play those characters well, but it does make trying to kill them with Jeff’s Special Move annoying.

It does make for a staggering amount of content and gameplay for an early live service!

• Character Designs

I actually really like some of the redesigns that the characters got in this game. Jeff is probably the best and most detailed he’s ever looked since his comic appearances which made him look a lot more cartoony.

For the most part, all of the redesigns are pretty cool! Some of them aren’t that crazy, you’re not going to change iconic character designs like Spiderman or Iron Man, but the team did a good job making the new special armour really stand out, and they do hit a good balancing act of making them fit into the gameplay whilst also resembling their comic counterparts.

Some of them are a bit obscure so we were able to go a bit more nuts in the redesigns, certainly Psylocke has had a massive redesign which won’t stand out that much, since not many people remember who she is unless you’ve played Marvel vs Capcom a lot, and you’ve probably forgot which of the X-Men movies she was in..

As a whole, there aren’t any that really bothered me. I didn’t particularly like how Thor looks a lot older than he does in any other incarnation, but the design isn’t offensive at all.

The only issue I did have was that the outfits that are similar to the MCU versions are locked behind a paywall, but this is a free to play live service game, so that is kind of part and parcel, and the prices on them aren’t too absurd, and you don’t have to go through a bunch of loot boxes to get them either.

MIXED

• Maps

The maps are fine, although I do think it’s one of the areas that is lacking. The variety isn’t entirely there. There are some cosmic maps for Guardians of the Galaxy, some Asgardian ones, and Tokyo 2099 is here too, as well as some maps set in Wakanda. I would say as a whole, I think it needed one or two more maps.

I’m staggered that they didn’t do one based around Manhattan considering how much seems to happen in New York in the Marvel universe, but this is what we got.

The maps can be a little generic at times and I would say they don’t stand out as much as its competitor Overwatch, but they’re fine and I grew to enjoy them. More are planned to be added as we go on, so I think that this criticism will be reduced by this time next year.

CONS

• The Overwatch Comparisons are Kind of Distracting

By this, I mean that at some points of the game there are some very distracting moments where you really get the Overwatch comparisons, and they can feel a bit off. Obviously, Overwatch was going to play a big part in this whole thing’s development, but I think you might become distracted with how similar these two things are.

Star-Lord is very clearly supposed to be Tracer, and they even gave him some of Reaper’s moves. Jeff is kind of Mercy and Ludzio, and Hulk is clearly D’VA, Groot is weirdly Mei…

It doesn’t bother me too much, but I do think that there are points where I felt the game was lacking in some originality, and this will become more noticeable if you have played a lot of Overwatch.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Marvel Rivals is a very well put together 5v5 multiplayer. The gameplay is easy to learn but hard to master, the variety of characters really sells it, and it really does fit into the spirit of Marvel Comics. It has its issues, I didn’t think the maps were anything extraordinary, but for a game to have 33 characters at launch is a hell of a lot of content compared to other live service games.

They do plan to release more characters and maps soon, and I hope that they go long term on this once, since I think that it could definitely become one of my regular multiplayer games and replace Overwatch.

FINAL SCORE: 9/10