Marvel Rivals is off to a tremendous start. The third-person hero shooter from developer NetEase Games launched last week and in just three days has already surpassed 10 million players worldwide.
"We want to extend our heartfelt thanks to each and every one of you," the developer wrote on social media. "Let's ignite the battle together."
NetEase also announced the first Marvel Rivals Championship, an organized quarterly event divided into seven regions: China PC, North America PC, North America Console, Europe PC, Europe Console, Asia PC, and Asia Console. Sign-ups are based on region locations and are available through December 14th.
Open Qualifiers run from December 14th-15th, with Closed Qualifiers from December 21st-22nd. There's also from December 27th-29th and January 3rd-5th. The tournament will be broadcast live from December 27th to 29th, 2024, and from January 3rd to 5th, 2025. You can tune in via the Marvel Rivals Twitch Channel.
The format works like this:
⦁ Open qualifiers adopt a BO1 format, with the top 128 Factions directly advancing to the double-elimination stage.
⦁ Factions ranked No.129-512 advance to the closed qualifiers, which also use the BO1 format.
⦁ The top 128 Factions in the closed qualifiers will advance to the double-elimination stage.
⦁ During the double-elimination stage, the matches from 256 to 16 will follow a BO3 format, while the Grand Finals and the Lower Bracket Finals will follow a BO7 format. The other stages will adopt a BO5 format.
The total prize pool for each region is $14,500. The Champion receives $6,000 while the Runner-up gets $3,000. Third place is $1,500 with fourth place getting $800. No. 5-8 get $400 per faction and No. 9-16 get $200 per faction.
Marvel Rivals is a competitive team-based shooter featuring super heroes and villains from across the Marvel Universe. The game currently features a roster of 33 playable characters from all corners of Marvel lore. Certain heroes can work together on a team to unlock special and powerful team-up abilities.
The game is completely free to play on consoles and PC. There aren't many official reviews right now on Metacritic, but the scores that are posted are in the mid-70s to low-80s. The general consensus is that Marvel Rivals is very much inspired by Overwatch, but does enough differently to have its own identity and feel.