Marvel Rivals, Marvel’s hero shooter game in a style similar to Overwatch, dropped December 6th, 2024. After spending some time familiarizing myself with the game, I’m glad to say it is a welcome addition to the hero shooter genre.
When loading into the game, the first thing I noticed is how much it resembles Overwatch. It’s so similar, even the menus are nearly identical in both their style and their layout. I expected the games to be similar as they are both part of the same niche genre, but not quite this identical.
I went through the tutorial as The Punisher, the default selection for the tutorial. I found the controls to be pleasantly simplistic. Right trigger, on Xbox, means shoot, then the other buttons all activate various abilities by holding them down or pressing them once depending on the ability. The tutorial only took a few minutes to complete, and I imagine I would have done just fine without it. The only thing it told me that I did not expect was that some of the environments are destructible. That was surprising in a very good way as I love destructible environments in games.
The amount of heroes in this game is very impressive. Even if the game launched with half as many characters, it would still be a good amount. There are currently 33 playable characters including classics like Spider-Man, Bruce Banner, Captain America, Wolverine, and Thor, then there’s lesser known characters like Penni Parker, Squirrel Girl, Magik, and Jeff the Land Shark. The heroes are broken into three classes: vanguard, the tank class, duelist, the damage per second and most populous class, and strategist, the support and healer class. The number of options I had to choose from was almost intimidating, so I figured I’d just start playing with characters I like.
Then, I loaded into my first match. To start off, I chose Spider-Man, a duelist, and quickly regretted it. I died without getting a single kill six or seven times. His web swinging definitely felt awkward, but I’ve since seen other people use it extremely effectively. I decided to switch it up and went for Iron Man, another duelist. Quickly, Iron Man’s game play felt pretty familiar and reminded me of Pharah from Overwatch. Iron Man shoots his repulsors slowly, but each shot has area of effect damage that becomes more severe the closer to target is to the center of the blast. He can also shoot a beam out of his chest and temporarily enter a powered up mode in which every shot does increased damage with the added capability of firing missiles. On top of that, he can enter a sort of flight mode where he moves with exponentially increased speed and is able to use the missiles once again. Playing as Iron Man was lots of fun, but hard to take out groups of enemies.
Then, sticking to the Marvel staples, I switched to Captain America, a vanguard, which I very much enjoyed. Cap has tons of health, a shield (obviously) to block attacks with and several different ways to engage enemies. I tried Thor, another vanguard, but only for a few minutes as my match ended soon after. I then switched to Moon Knight, then The Punisher, then Magneto, then Rocket Raccoon, then Hawkeye. Some characters seemed a little harder to play as than others, but the game gives you a star rating based on difficulty to let you know what you’re getting into. The higher the stars, the harder the character is.
One of the coolest aspects of the game that separates it from Overwatch more than anything else is the Team-Ups aspect of the game. Essentially, when the right combinations of two or three characters are used, those characters all get an upgrade of some kind. For example, when Storm, Thor, and Captain America are all on the same team, the Voltaic Union Team-Up activates. Storm gets an upgrade to her electric attacks and Captain America’s melee range is extended and imbued with electricity. However, it doesn’t seem like Thor actually receives any upgrades, only providing them. What I’m not sure of is if all three characters need to be present for the upgrade to work or if Thor will give the upgrade to either of them regardless of if the other is present. Either way, it’s a very cool system.
I truly only have one complaint about the game, but it’s more of a complaint about the hero shooter genre as a whole: the reliance on healers. I honestly wish healers just weren’t part of the experience. Very few people genuinely enjoy playing as healers, only doing so to support their team. I get why they’re included as this type of game is all about teamwork, but I still think they ultimately just make the game a bit less fun for whoever chooses them.
So far, I’ve encountered no glitches at all which is shocking for a brand new, free to play game. Overall, I’m enjoying the game a lot and give the experience as a whole an amazing 9/10. Check back for my full review in about a week!