If you know anything about me or read my review of ‘Deadpool and Wolverine’ last semester, you’d know that I am not the biggest fan of the direction Marvel as an entertainment group has been heading for the past few years. I, like millions of other people, became a huge fan of Marvel superheroes because of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s films. And I, like millions of other people, have been more than a little frustrated with the MCU’s dip in quality since Avengers: Endgame. But one recent Marvel project has shone through in the face of mediocrity, and it’s coming from a direction that I had not fully associated with the superpowered brand until now. Marvel Rivals is a MOBA, or multiplayer online battle arena video game that was released in December and has since captured more of my time than I’d like to admit, but has proven to be an extremely fun, well thought out and engaging piece of Marvel media.
Marvel Rivals is essentially a more dynamic, more colorful, more fun and crazy version of the popular game Overwatch. It’s a hero shooter, a type of game where you choose from a selection of playable characters, hop on a team of five other friends or random people online, and fight against another team of six in 10-20 minute rounds. Right off the bat the selection of 33 heroes (or 35 depending on when you’re reading this) is amazing for such a new game. As well, the roster is mixed nicely between extremely well known characters, and extremely unknown characters from all across the Marvel universe. They have heroes like Spider-man, Iron man or Thor, but also heroes like Jeff the Land Shark and Luna Snow. I could talk about how well realized the character roster is forever, but what really makes the game fun is the incredible and unique hero design. Each character is made to be a bit overpowered – almost like you’re playing as literal superheroes – which would normally be a problem in terms of balancing, but instead works as one of the best aspects of the game. I hate when I play a competitively driven game like this and I am disallowed from picking certain characters due to their uselessness in the ‘meta’. Marvel Rivals makes you feel like you can grab your favorite hero and actually do something with them.
All of these attributes create the perfect mixture for a real blockbuster of a game. People are coming in droves to play and keep playing Rivals, despite this game genre’s increasing reputation for flops. Games like the now famous failure Concord were coming out and shutting down all the time in the last few years, but Marvel Rivals did a few things differently that helped it push through and break the mold. Yes, it has the backing of Marvel as an IP, and that was most certainly a reason why people started playing in the first place. But what kept them hooked was the incredible and unique hero design, as I mentioned – but also, in my opinion, the amazing quality of the game-style. Rivals, unlike Overwatch 2 and many other hero shooters, is really fun to look at. Every single bit of the menus, in game, cutscenes, MVP animations; they’re all combed over with a certain amount of artistic flair. I could not give enough compliments to the art direction on this game. Everything feels precise and intentional, and the more cartoony graphics help it feel less like I’m just playing any old shooter. Of course, there’s many other reasons for why Rivals is scaring the hell out of Blizzard, beating Overwatch, but I just thought that was one that’s often overlooked by reviewers.
This is almost starting to sound like an ad for the game, but genuinely, I say all this because this game is really fun to play. That is the most important part of game design after all, actually making a deep, interesting and fun gameplay loop. I love when I can just not stop complimenting a piece of media, when something released by a major corporation like Marvel (and the mouse behind it) is actually genuinely great. I love that I can talk for hours with my friends about who we’d love to see get added to the game next. It’s great, and if you have a system that can run it, I would highly recommend it.
Also did I mention it’s free to play?
Atticus Jackson is a button-mashing Writing for Film, TV and Emerging Media Major at Ithaca College. He can be reached at [email protected].