It’s been a great few weeks for Marvel Rivals. Taking the hero-shooter world by storm just before Christmas. Still showing a good-sized playerbase, and now it’s gearing up for its first proper season. With it, some serious shake-ups to the game.
Since its launch last month, the game has been in “Season 0”, a kind of extended pre-season. While some characters seemed to dominate the meta, NetEase assures us that they’ve seen “significant shifts in team compositions” and “a vibrant diversity of lineups”.
However, it seems the devs have noticed a trend towards double shield and ranged-heavy teams at higher skill levels. Note: This is not how I’ve been playing….I’ve been more of a “whatever feels fun and works with the current team of all DPS….
To combat the established meta, Marvel Rivals Season 1: Eternal Night Falls will introduce a raft of balance changes designed to ensure a “richer, more engaging, and diverse” experience.
Don’t expect any major overhauls to Team-Up abilities just yet though – those are slated for Season 2. This will be nice, because whilst they’re cool in concept and some pay off reasonably. I don’t know that the benefits are significant enough to change team comp for them.
Who’s getting nerfed?
Some of the most powerful characters are facing the nerf bat:
- Hulk: His Indestructible Guard shield will be a bit less indestructible with a reduced value.
- Hawkeye: Looks like he’ll need to get up close and personal, as his medium-long-range damage is taking a hit.
- Hela: The Goddess of Death is having her base health trimmed down.
Who’s getting buffed?
On the flip side, some underperforming heroes are getting some love:
- Black Widow: Her ultimate ability is getting a boost in range, making her a more formidable threat.
- Namor: Say goodbye to those wayward egg throws! Namor’s accuracy is getting a buff.
- Storm: The weather goddess is bringing the thunder with an overall damage increase.
Marvel Rivals hot heroes?
NetEase has also released a handy “Hero Hot List” showing the most popular picks across PC and console, in both Quickplay and Competitive modes. Odd name, and not what my mind goes to initially…
Unsurprisingly, Jeff the Land Shark is king of Quickplay (who doesn’t love a skateboarding shark?).
In Competitive, Luna Snow reigns supreme on PC, while Cloak & Dagger are the duo of choice on console. Black Widow and Storm are languishing at the bottom, hence their well-deserved buffs.
It’s odd, because the initial discourse was that Storm was overpowered, and then that seemed to fade away quite quickly.
I’ve been trying to get to grips with Cloak and Dagger, and had relative success, so I can see why they’re popular. Luna Snow feels awful to use, so I’m definitely surprised by her popularity!
Fantastic Four incoming!
Season 1 has introduced, two of the Fantastic Four as playable heroes.
However, there’s been some chatter amongst players about the Invisible Woman’s design being a bit too similar to Dagger, potentially causing confusion in the heat of battle. I mean, what a load of nonsense. What impact is it really going to have? I play as someone colourblind and have to constantly check/re-check team colours etc, which matters. Does it make any difference if you can see which specific character is being used as you run past?
The future of Marvel Rivals
Since its release, Marvel Rivals has proven to be a smash hit, reaching a peak of nearly half a million concurrent players on Steam.
Based on that and the new season incoming, it feels like Marvel Rivals is just stretching its legs before it can get running fully. It’ll be really interesting to see the next few seasons and how the game is holding up in a years’ time. Will people be tired of it and back to Overwatch as this is just a nice palate cleanser? Or will we be looking at continual high player counts and a thriving competitive scene?
It’s hard to say right now, but everything looks promising for Marvel Rivals as of this moment.
