Marvel Rivals review underway

I’m not new to the hero shooter genre, having pumped well over 1,000 hours into Overwatch since its release in 2016. And it’s hard not to feel like 2016 is exactly when Marvel Rivals was supposed to be a thing. I should have been anxiously awaiting its launch while mourning the loss of Harambe, witnessing a nadir in English football at the hands of Iceland, and, crucially, riding high on watching Captain America: Civil War. Having said that, what will we get in 2024 is a fun hero shooter that I’ve found a fair amount of satisfaction with so far while playing on pre-release servers this week. It launches with a thick roster of different heroes as well as some solid maps and modes. What remains to be seen, however, is whether Rivals will find a fervent fanbase like both Blizzard and Marvel did all those years ago – a task most hero shooters have struggled with recently. I still have more to play on the live servers before I’m ready for a final review, but if Rivals doesn’t find that audience, at least it doesn’t seem to be the plot’s fault.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery – just ask Taskmaster – and it’s not out of line to say that the footprints of Overwatch really can be seen everywhere you step into Marvel Rivals. Its 6v6 ensembles of tank, damage and support equivalent classes (here called Vanguard, Duelist and Strategist respectively) battle it out in the familiar escort and point capture modes turned hero shooters. You’ll either be pushing Marvel-themed payloads such as a Statue of Bast through familiar locales like Wakanda, preventing them from reaching their destination, or fighting for possession of a contested zone in the center of the map. There’s no reinventing the wheel here, but they are battle-tested tug-of-war modes that effectively serve as the vehicle for Rival’s super-powered action.

And those powers are wielded by a loaded roster of 33 heroes at launch, which also happens to be the area where the most Overwatch DNA can be found – you’ll practically hear Steve Rogers saying “I got that reference” in your head as you scroll through each of them. There is fresh options here, but some instead draw comically obvious parallels: Hawkeye shares nearly identical skills to Hanzo, and I found the same amount of joy in pinging heads as I did with the Shimada brother’s arc. Scarlet Witch cosplays as a Moira who has stopped kidding herself about being a healer – if you love holding down a button and instantly locking on to drain an enemy’s health, she’s the one for you. (We’ve all done it, there’s no shame here.) And then there’s Black Widow, who takes the form of a deadly sniper like, you guessed it, Widowmaker. Shameless as it is, it’s at least handy to have your teammates shout “Widow!” as a sniper bullet whistles past your head can transmit directly here.

Look, I know I’m bashing Overwatch a lot here in a Marvel Rivals review, but it doesn’t take more than one match to see why for yourself. Even its menus and user interface look as eerily similar to Blizzard’s hero shooter as X-Men. But while not the most inspired, it’s hard to begrudge some of the hero designs, as many simply follow fun archetypes with roots stretching all the way back to Team Fortress 2. It’s also really nice to see superhero character designs that understand and embrace their comic book origins rather than the Suicide Squad approach of giving everyone assault rifles.

Naturally, as I eased into this familiar yet fresh setting, I found myself drawn to characters that could act as welcome proxies for the Blizzard heroes I already knew so well. I immediately went on the hunt for a D.Va replacement and found that Bruce Banner and his alter ego the Hulk share aspects of that design due to their dual life appearances, as does Penni Parker with her gadget-packed spider- mech. That said, none of them have quite clicked for me yet, as their sheer size and relatively slow movement make them easy targets to flush. I think it could also be because their skill set is focused on getting close to the enemy, which I have yet to find to be the most entertaining strategy in Rivals. Melee fighters can get lost in the action as it’s sometimes hard to see where the damage is coming from, which doesn’t make for the most tactical battles as noise and color flood the screen.

In fact, I haven’t enjoyed many of the crazy Vanguard heroes I’ve tried yet. I’ll have to play more before I can definitively put my finger on why, but right now I think it has something to do with the fact that they each play more as DPS heroes with bigger health bars rather than valuable anchors that help the team secure a point. It’s early days, but so far there seems to be no emphasis on positioning and map awareness, instead focusing on taking enemies head first.

This is best exemplified in Venom, which is by far the most powerful tank I’ve tried (and tried to kill), diving in and out of the action to deal bursts of backline damage. He’s incredibly destructive, and while I haven’t quite mastered him yet, he tended to dominate most matches I saw him in pre-launch. His only real downside for me is that he relies on symbiote-swinging around the arena to get the jump on his prey, and swinging just doesn’t feel good. It’s also true when I’m using Spider-Man, with the confines of the arenas limiting my swing range, and the frustration of not regularly finding a piece of architecture that I can easily engage. I realize that you can’t build an all-star Marvel team without Spidey, but he just feels out of place here.

Fortunately, the majority of the roster plays much better. The Winter Soldier’s hard-hitting hand cannon and dense cybernetic arm make for a deadly duo. I’ve also had a great time hovering over enemies and raining lightning down on them as Storm, as well as bringing the X-factor with an amazingly powerful tornado ultimate. It’s a little ironic then that my pick of the pack so far has to be Star-Lord. An amalgamation of Overwatch’s Tracer and Soldier 76, his stripped-down moveset of dual SMGs and a speed boost combined with a small health bar make him an exciting glass cannon.

Though again, that doesn’t mean developer NetEase’s effort is pure imitation, with a few clever tricks up its sleeve to make Rivals play a little differently. Chief among them are team-up abilities. For example, when Star-Lord is paired with Adam Warlock, he gets a self-revival after a long cooldown. These passive and active combos are a smart twist and so far feel nicely balanced between being momentum shifters when used correctly without becoming complete game changers that make you feel like a slave to them when you pick heroes at the start of a fight. Other examples include choosing Rocket Racoon when your team has a Groot, which allows the mouthy rodent to (literally) add bark to his bite while jumping on his tree’s back and raining fire down from there, giving him reduction of incoming damage. It encourages smart team building without leaving characters behind or guilt tripping others for not matching their incessant requests to team up.

Add these synergistic systems to the much appreciated lack of stun lock abilities and Marvel Rivals really sings when the wheels are in motion. This is a hero shooter that wants you to liberally use the powers it grants, with barriers (both literal and metaphorical) at a premium. I was skeptical of third-person gun games at first, as I traditionally prefer to shoot from a first-person perspective, but Rivals does a good job of keeping each weapon distinct from each other and satisfying to use. I’ve often found myself drawn to hit-scan characters when it comes to shooters, and it’s no different here. Rivals are very fast though, with heroes constantly rushing across the screen, making it quite a challenge for snipers. The skill ceiling certainly seems high here, with a surprisingly steep learning curve for newcomers. The most effective characters right now seem to be the brawlers, but as I said before, these are also the least fun to play. Hopefully this balances out over time so that efficiency is more or less the same across the board.

It’s very early days, but I’ve noticed one-on-one skirmishes taking precedence over actual team play right now. Rarely has a victory felt like a team effort – instead, results are more often decided solely by who does the most damage. So far, it looks like every character is expected to be stuck in the kill as well, including “healers.” That means there’s never a dull moment, but also that Rivals leaves a little to be desired tactically at this stage. But as the community gets to grips with its maps and characters, hopefully some real tactics and character combinations will start to emerge.

Another step towards innovation is the destructible environments found on each map. Whether it’s the sci-fi walls of Tokyo 2099 caving in to reveal new sniper locations, or Yggsgård’s stone bridges crumbling to take out an enemy’s strongpoint, it’s a clever approach to map design – one that allows bypassing choke points in interesting ways so that each round feels dynamic compared to the last. This is crucial to Rivals’ appeal at launch, especially since only eight cards are available at the start. While not the most generous selection, they are visually distinct enough to provide a real sense of variety over evening-long play sessions.

It’s all unequivocally stylish to boot, with comic book flourishes such as the frame burst animation of Star-Lord’s blaster blocking ability or Banner’s transformation into the Hulk really standing out. I also like the ability to see each player’s individual highlights after the match is over. While some of the glory of forcing the entire lobby to watch your “Play of the Game” A Clockwork Orange style is lost, it makes sure that everyone gets a share of the spotlight (although I not-so-secretly want all of that even after getting a quadruple kill).

So far, I’m having enough fun with Marvel Rivals to be interested in more. It’s also the exact Overwatch imitator I thought it would be – it’s polished and feels good to play without ever showing the kind of ambition that something like Valve’s Deadlock brings to the hero shooter-come-MOBA party in 2024 .It does, however, have the money-spinning Marvel license and free-to-play model behind it to hopefully avoid a Concord-like disaster. I look forward to playing more and digging deeper into some online matches now that the servers are open to the public and we will now be able to explore the full extent of both its microtransactions and the evolving meta. Check back soon for my fully scored review of Marvel Rivals in the next week or so.