Marvel Rivals all this and Squirrel Girl too (NetEase Games)A new free-to-play online shooter has enlisted Marvel superheroes to help it beat Overwatch at its own game, and so far its doing surprisingly well.Overwatch but with Marvel Characters. Theres a compelling simplicity about that pitch. While many games can have complicated loglines, that dont necessarily explain the game succinctly, NetEases Marvel Rivals doesnt have that problem. While it feels harsh to bring up the comparison of Overwatch so early, its also unavoidable when talking about the latest hero shooter.The games relationship with Blizzards shooter is an interesting one. Despite being the ire of much criticism, Overwatch 2 remains popular. When it seems each week were hearing about another live service title shutting down, despite having dreams of becoming the next Fortnite, thats becoming a rarity, not the norm.Whats more, its wild its taken this long for a serious competitor to Blizzards 2016 game to emerge. When Overwatch launched, it took over mainstream gaming in such a way that a string of clones felt inevitable but that never really materialised, not unless you count Concord. Instead, Overwatch has sat atop the hero shooter genre for eight years now.NetEase is clearly attempting to challenge that hegemony with its latest offering and its brought along Captain America and the entire Marvel licence with it. So, the question is whether this is a true challenger or yet another new live service game that launches big before quickly tapering out. As someone with over 2,500 hours spent in Overwatch, Ive jumped in feet first to find out.Perhaps the most noticeable thing about Marvel Rivals is just how good it looks. If there were any doubts this was a low effort Marvel cash grab, they are dispelled within seconds of booting up. Everything about the games presentation pops. From animations in menus, to the UI, to animated character pages, everything is imbued with a contagious positive, zippy attitude. And thats before you even get into the game.Once you actually hit a lobby, youre met with a gorgeous art style that really catches the eye. These characters have been lovingly imagined in this sleek, comic book style that is beautifully executed in-game. That is matched by the presentation of all eight of the current maps, taking place in recognisable Marvel locations such as Asgard, a Hydra bunker, Tokyo 2099, and The Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda.In game, you play in 6v6 arenas, where there is an objective for you to either attack or defend. In terms of hero shooters, and especially Overwatch, there is nothing surprising here. Everything is analogous to a counterpart in Blizzards game. Convoy maps have you pushing a payload to a final destination. Domination is about capturing points across three different maps and holding them until you reach 100% much like Overwatchs Control.Convergence, acts as a hybrid of the two, with players needing to unlock a point and then guide a payload. All of these are present in Marvel Rivals main competitor, but it works. You will immediately understand these game modes and the maps, which is both a benefit in terms of a accessibility and a sign of the games rampant lack of ambition when it comes to certain elements.Where Marvel Rivals differentiates itself in terms of the maps is by being destructible. Its an interesting wrinkle that can have you shooting through walls to creatively make your own flanks. Or, you can bring down an overhead bridge, above an objective, obscuring your team from the enemy. Theres a sense of an evolving battlefield as you go, with an added sense of strategy as you bend a location to your whim. Of course, all this would be nothing without heroes who are fun to play, but thats perhaps Marvel Rivals biggest success.Marvel Rivals could have easily fallen into the trap of making a lot of analogous characters with kits directly ripped from Overwatch. For the most part it doesnt though. While some characters will have recognisable abilities with similarities, the hero identities are crafted with a lot of thought. The default character designs arent based on the MCU (NetEase Games)Loki, for example, is a really unique hero design, but one that feels built entirely around the identity of the character hes based off, rather than being comparable to a character in League Of Legends, Rainbow Six, Valorant, or Overwatch.His abilities centre around creating doppelgangers that help you shoot and heal enemies. If an enemy is barrelling towards you, you can trade places with a doppelganger and also turn invisible, really selling the idea of being the god of trickery. His ultimate ability allows him to transform into another hero and use their ultimate, which is both fun and a nod to the characters established powers. This is a hero that was designed to feel like being Loki, not to feel like a version of a character from another game.That kind of ingenuity and commitment to the characters is really what makes Marvel Rivals stand out. Theres a genuine reverence to these characters, made by developers who clearly love them. It also helps that there is an impressive roster, that feels cleverly constructed.Theres a strong selection of the most recognisable heroes from the films, as well as comic book favourites that may have not had their time in the mainstream yet, like Jeff the Land Shark and Luna Snow. Therere also some obvious, missing mainstays like Deadpool, Ant-Man, Ghost Rider, Thanos and more that is only going to add anticipation for when they inevitably turn up.Thats not to say Marvel Rivals isnt setting off some alarm for me as an experienced hero shooter player. While some of my concerns are speculative, I dont expect them to stay that way for long because this has already played out in every live service game that has ever needed to be balanced over time.At the start of any live service launch, especially one as successful as Marvel Rivals has been, players fall into a honeymoon phase. Wow, this is just fun. They should keep this game casual and not ruin it by focusing too much on the competitive aspects, some will say.Its easy to get that appeal. When a fresh experience comes along to challenge an established titan, it feels freeing, because all the baggage is gone the years of system changes, choices, balancing, the focus of the game all that weight is gone. But as with any live service game ever made, it wont take long for that to accumulate.If Marvel Rivals is going to survive long term, it needs to serve its engaged community, which naturally will be competitively minded, as players get better at the game. Keeping things casual isnt a sustainable goal, as new metas are found, broken combos take over games, or characters are found to be too powerful. Eventually that ruins the integrity of the competitive experience, so things get buffed and nerfed, often based on data and sentiment from the engaged community who are naturally locked into the ranked environment. Its inevitable and Marvel Rivals has some worrying signs that that transition to the long term could be rocky. Spider-Man is an obvious starter character (NetEase Games)Will Marvel Rivals have role queue?Marvel Rivals has some quirks that even in this honeymoon phase are starting to become a nuisance. The first and most obvious is the question of Role Lock. This is a solution Overwatch came to in its balancing of the game over time, due to several meta compositions and poor quality games. It dictates that each team needs to have two tank characters (one tank in Overwatch 2), two DPS (damage per second), and two support. Marvel Rivals doesnt have that. Instead, it lets players chose whatever hero they want, no matter what characters your teammates have chosen.This is great for player freedom and can lead to interesting compositions that a standard role lock would scupper. It also keeps queue times down, as the game doesnt need to find two players for each role of equivalent skill. However, it also means and is quite likely from my experience many games will have unbalanced and downright awful team compositions. Freedom is all well and good, but it means nothing when youre getting stomped by a team with a good mixture of each of the roles, but your teammates are unwilling to be flexible and so line up with five DPS and one overworked support.Thus far, the developers have been resistant to role queue when its been brought up, saying it fundamentally goes against the games design. That said, the conversation between players is growing louder already. Will the developers be willing to approach the subject or will they ignore it? From my time with the game, its increasingly feeling like a needed feature. How the developer handles balance and topics like this is going to be part of deciding the games long term future.What is the season boost in Marvel Rivals?However, thats not the only thing Marvel Rivals also has some strange design decisions that feel like ticking time bombs. One is the seasonal boost system. In the game right now, a lot of characters are getting passive boosts to their stats due to being anchors for the games Team Up abilities. For instance, Venom right now has 800 health point, but he actually is cited as having 650 on the games website.Thats due to the always-on passive this season, where he is granted +150 health points. That means, once Season 1 comes around, hes going to get an enormous nerf, as a new character becomes the beneficiary of that boost. Elsewhere, players are out there perfecting their Spider-Man and Magik dives to secure kills, but right now they are receiving a 15% damage boost. When thats gone, that effort will be seriously impacted if the developers decide to add these seasonal bonuses to other characters.This is a bizarre way to balance a hero shooter and artificially force metas. While balance patches should be used to encourage diversity through seasons to keep the game fresh, this feels like a sledgehammer solution to ensure certain characters are powerful. These are big buffs, and as more players realise that the hero theyve gravitated to at launch might be made a lot worse by the time season one comes around, that tension is going to grow.Thor, is getting a buff of 150 health right now due to that seasonal bonus. When that is gone, hes going to suffer immensely. If youre a Thor fan who just wants to play Thor because hes your favourite superhero, but you cant use him effectively because the developers decided not to give him a seasonal bonus, that just feels bad. Not all the characters are obvious inclusions (NetEase Games)There are other issues and bizarre decisions that Marvel Rivals has made too. For one, it inexplicably has 19 duelists, more than both tanks and supports combined, a strange own goal that only contributes to team compositions being so DPS heavy. In Overwatch it has so many DPSes due to the game initially splitting up offensive and defensive heroes a decision that game is still trying to rectify. For some reason NetEase has just walked right into the same issue.Also, some of the characters abilities have already started to feel like a problem. The game has a lot of crowd control and problematic effects that players have complained about in other hero games, that likely will become pain points here. For example, Adam Warlock can resurrect entire teams, something Mercy was able to do in Overwatch before Blizzard realised that just feels bad to wipe out a team, only for them to reappear, undoing all your work.One of the ways to really sum up the balancing challenges that face Marvel Rivals is Jeff the Land Sharks ultimate. Its hilarious the first time, when he eats an entire enemy team and then finds a spot to jump off the map, killing him and everyone one inside. Its not hilarious when it happens for the fifth ranked match in a row and you cant counter-play the ability. Whats fun and joyful now can become far less so the more time you put into a game. Thats the tension at the heart of Marvel Rivals.However, when it is just silly casual fun, Marvel Rivals excels in that position. It is one of the best launches in the genre in years, and it feels like a game with a long future ahead of it, as a genuine competitor in the spaceMore TrendingConsidering how many failures weve seen this year, from the likes of Concord, XDefiant, and Foamstars, thats a minor miracle. Marvel Rivals has an exceptional hero design, with some really unique and reverentially designed characters. Its presentation is also beautiful and coherent, both utilising the expansive IP and elevating the comic book styling to a gorgeous effect. To put it another way, in a service model where most fail Marvel Rivals has the juice to maintain relevancy going forward.However, even this early on, some of the cracks in the games systems and balancing are starting to show. Season bonuses, the absence of role queue, and other outliers within the current game are already generating conversation amongst players. It feels that push and pull between it being a fun casual experience and those wishing to excel in competitive and join the in-game tournaments is already starting to become a tension. How that tension is dealt with will be what decides the future of Marvel Rivals as a long term live service game.However, if you ignore all that, and the idea of Overwatch with Marvel Characters and none of the baggage sounds appealing in any way Marvel Rivals delivers on that promise and then some. In a world where newly launched live service games are getting put out to pasture, this one feels like it might pull off the superhuman feat of surviving.Marvel Rivals review summaryIn Short: A live service game with the superpower of longevity, assuming it can maintain the balance between being a casual and competitive online shooter.Pros: A seriously stylish hero shooter that is both beautiful to look at and full of smart, well thought out recreations of Marvels most beloved heroes. Plenty of content at launch.Cons: The struggle to please both casual and serious players is already showing signs of strain and may break down entirely over time. Seasonal boost system seems a very flawed concept.Score: 7/10Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Xbox Series X/S, and PCPrice: Free-to-playPublisher: NetEase GamesDeveloper: NetEase GamesRelease Date: 6th December 2024Age Rating: 12 Caps shield obviously comes in very handy (NetEase Games)Emailgamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below,follow us on Twitter, andsign-up to our newsletter.To submit Inbox letters and Readers Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use ourSubmit Stuff page here.For more stories like this,check our Gaming page.GameCentralExclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content.This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy