It’s been a long while since I last properly played a hero shooter. I was a veteran of the first days of Overwatch and playing that game was some of my favourite gaming moments in my modern life. I made plenty off friends, many of which I still talk to through to this day, and I just really enjoyed the gameplay. I eventually fell out of love with the game, especially with the sequel, so I’ve always been looking for another game to scratch that itch. Luckily, Marvel Rivals has come about and has established itself as the Overwatch-style game that I have missed. How does it stand up on its on merits though? Time to find out!
The story of Marvel Rivals doesn’t truly matter as a multiplayer-only hero shooter but for the sake of context the villain, Doctor Doom, has found a way to split timelines and establish himself as the dominant force in the universe. However, so has another Doom from another timeline, and so they are waging war over the entire Marvel multiverse to establish dominance. You play as heroes brought out of their own timeline to fight against one another in this strange, multiversal conflict and through the combat scenarios eventually find a way to defeat Doctor Doom and reset the timelines back to normal. As a narrative framing device it works fine to establish why past and future characters are interacting with one another, but the biggest strength Marvel Rivals has over other hero shooters is in fact the IP itself. Marvel has literal decades of lore and stories to establish characters and have them interact with one another, meaning that for fans of the comics this is a dream come true. The game even comes with various biographies, lore blurbs, and all cosmetics reference the comics that they came from which is a nice touch. In terms of bringing a new hero shooter to the market, Marvel Rivals has already done the hard work from a narrative standpoint and given everyone in it a backstory and plenty of lore to establish who they are and why they are fighting. Thumbs up all around!
Presentation-wise this game goes for a more cartooney aesthetic to match the comic origins of the characters and I think it works well. Environments are gorgeous (and fully destructible… if you’re into that sort of thing) and each of the characters is modelled well and feels very authentic to their comic origins. Even the cosmetics for many of them fit well and I found myself just really enjoying how many of them looked. Sound-wise the main music is fine and goes for an ‘epic’ sounding battle track that works well enough to match the atmosphere. The voice acting is top notch with everyone giving great performances and with notification lines such as ultimates and warning of snipers being so important in a hero shooter they did a fantastic job with these. The game menus too work well and while I have some gripes with the UI I think ultimately this game works well for the type of graphics it was aiming for. I’m happy with the presentation, and I hope future cosmetics end up being just as detailed and enjoyable compared to the base characters.
Gameplay is very much what you would expect from a standard hero shooter. 6v6 arenas with various game modes of escorting, capturing objectives and plenty of heroes to choose from. The main difference, aside from the destructible environments which don’t tend to affect gameplay much, is how each hero plays. To put it lightly, they absolutely nailed how most characters should play in this game. Many of them have plenty of previous game backlogs to choose from, for example there are many hulk and spiderman games made before, and each of their implementation feels like you are playing as them from their old games. For example, Iron Man had a couple of games in the past that felt a bit like a combination of a standard action game and a jet-fighter game, and he absolutely feels that way in this title from the way he controls to how he moves when boosting around. It really works well for making each character feel distinct and while some characters can feel a bit samey at times, especially healers, I feel for the more part they absolutely nailed how each character should play. The gameplay itself too is absolutely great, everything feels smooth and games don’t ever tend to feel completely un-fun even if you do get steamrolled. I also enjoyed how almost all characters feel like they make a huge impact in each match, so nobody feels as though they are dead weight, especially when it comes to ultimate abilities which can turn the tide of a game entirely. In terms of competitive viability I have no idea if this title will ever become an e-sport as currently it feels a lot more casual-focused, but that was the same as TF2 and that’s an excellent competitive shooter. So who knows, but all I know is that it’s fun and I had fun playing it, and really that’s the main thing that matters.
There were however a few issues. Firstly, performance-wise this game can be a bit choppy, and loading times can be especially bad. Normally this isn’t a problem with me, all games need to load, however the way Marvel Rivals works as a multiplayer shooter if you have a slow enough machine it can take you a while to just load into a match, meaning your team can be one or two people down at the start as they load in, which can have a huge knock-on effect later into games. I actually had to install this game on my SSD to prevent this from happening, which is not ideal. Second, it’s a bit of a chaotic mess at the moment which makes understanding the UI, knowing what is going on in games and spectating it very confusing. I think this is just the unfortunate effect of having so many characters with different abilities making it very difficult to watch if you’re not familiar with the game and its mechanics. It’s this reason why I’m not sure if this will be a viable e-sport as so much happening can make spectators confused and a bit detached from the match itself. Finally, while I’m happy that the game is fully free to play and the only thing you can spend money on is cosmetics I am not a fan of how slow it is to earn cosmetics playing just for free and how some are entirely locked behind the paid battle pass system. Now I know, the game needs to make money somehow, but forcing players to buy certain cosmetics for their favourite characters rather than allowing them to purchase them with lots of in-game currency at a much slower rate is a bit of a bummer as I feel it will alienate a lot more people who just want to enjoy their favourite characters, but feel as though they’re missing out a big chunk of it because of certain beloved cosmetics being stuck behind the premium battle pass.
Regardless of all of this however I still had a fantastic time with this title. It can only improve from here, and as long as they stick to their mantra of keeping all gameplay-related content free for everyone I could see this shooter having a lot of life in it long term. I’ll certainly be playing it more over the coming months, and for a free price tag you can’t ask for much more in a game. If you’re into multiplayer shooters at all, then Marvel Rivals is an excellent choice to pick up and have fun with.