What Makes Marvel Rivals Stand Out

The newest hero shooter has made its mark and seems here to stay! Marvel Rivals takes the big names from the MCU movies and throw them into a game for players to try out. From Captain America to Loki, pick a character and learn the maps while struggling to learn all the abilities and team-ups. At launch, the game had over 30 characters to choose from and the game will only continue to grow the roaster. Don’t fear if you are an avid reader of the comics, there are also comic-exclusive characters to pick from. Jeff the Land Shark, Squirrel Girl, and even Magik who all have little to no appearances on the big screen can finally get some love and recognition.

There are three types of classes just like all hero shooters: vanguard, damage, and strategist. Each character has a unique play style that adds new dynamics to the team. The inclusion of team-up powers makes the team comps even more fun to play around with. Pair up anyone from the Spider-Verse or Luna Snow and Jeff the Land Shark and get some buff for the entirety of the game.

The queue times for this game are incredibly fast and the games don’t take that long. Quick Plays seem to fly by if you are pushing the payload, with the longest matches being the capture-the-point games where you need to control two of the three areas. When it comes to ranked modes, nothing much changes, except the escort missions are now in two parts: both teams get to push the payload and whoever gets the better push wins the match. There is one amazing concept in the Chrono Shield, a shield that powers up with every loss. After charging up with three losses, the shield will automatically be used to protect players from taking the hit on their fourth loss. This is something incredibly simple, but can really be helpful in the midst of a losing streak. One of the only bad things to come out of Marvel Rivals is the lack of protection from disconnects. Many games have this issue, but in a competitive game, having someone on your team disconnect mid-round is incredibly frustrating. But, it gets worse when the inevitable loss takes away more points from your account. No matter the game, it stings and I would have thought that Marvel Rivals would have given grace to those remaining teammates. Having the Chrono Shield to save points during losses, but nothing to protect those who stay and fight till the end seems odd. I wish there was either a lot smaller loss for those players, or just didn’t punish them for losing an unfair match in the first place.

Some of the great things about Marvel Rivals that make it stand out from other popular hero shooters like Overwatch is that the maps are extremely breakable. There are certain maps that I make sure to break walls so I can get better angles to heal my teammates on the point. The breakable materials do come back and can even block players off from certain routes. This plus being able to throw other players off the map makes it a great time to just mess around with. The game devs really seem to be listening to the community and introducing characters and skins that the player base wants.

As with all free-to-play games, the way Marvel Rivals makes money is by allowing players to buy skins for their favorite characters. Now, I have seen games try to get away with lackluster skins being sold for $30 dollars (look at some of the recent League of Legends skins if you wanna have a heart attack) or a battle pass for $20 that you have to grind out in a short amount of time and if you don’t unlock everything, you’re just out of luck. Marvel Rivals does a wonderful job at putting not-super-aggressive microtransactions into their game. The skins are not super expensive (I got my Jeff the Landshark bundle on sale for $16). They go on sale at certain points to cut the price even more. The great thing about these skins in Marvel Rivals is that they are iconic skins from films or comic books that players have been wanting in the game. As soon as the Fantastic Four were released, Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman got fan-favorite skins the same day! This shows that the company is listening to fans and actually doing what they want. The final win for the game is that the battle passes never expire. If you spend your hard-earned money on a battle pass, you will be sure to get everything from it even if you don’t grind out games every single day.

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