The rumours about a PvP shooter based on Marvel superheroes were true, with a new game by veteran Call Of Duty and Battlefield developers.
EA may be moving away from licensed games, and probably now regrets signing up for their Iron Man and Black Panther games, but that’s not putting off other publishers. Skydance recently unveiled Marvel 1943: Rise Of Hydra and now NetEase Games has announced online shooter Marvel Rivals.
The basic details of the game leaked on Tuesday and it’s not hard to see why it was being compared to Overwatch, despite it being a third person game.
Marvel Rivals features 6v6 battles and a range of different characters, from the iconic Spider-Man, Iron Man, and Hulk to lesser known heroes such as Magik (who was also in Midnight Suns), Peni Parker (an alternative universe Spider-Man with a D.Va style mech), and Luna Snow (who looks a lot like DC supervillain Killer Frost).
The game is currently only confirmed for PC, but console versions do seem likely. It’s not clear if it’s going to be free-to-play either, but we certainly wouldn’t be surprised if it were. [Update: The developer has confirmed that it is, in fact, free-to-play.]
NetEase isn’t providing much information in general, beyond what you can discern from the trailer, but apparently the unnamed development team is comprised of ‘global talent’ who have previously worked on the likes of Call Of Duty and Battlefield.
The game describes itself as a shooter and yet many of the characters featured aren’t known for using ranged attacks, particularly someone like the Hulk.
They do all seem to have unique abilities though and you can see the Hulk seeming to wind up for some sort of projectile attack in the trailer, but it cuts out before you see what he’s going to do.
The only gameplay details specified by NetEase are ‘combining powers to form unique Team-up skills’ and destructible scenery, both of which you can see in the trailer.
The character designs are based on the comics, not the movies – even though there’s a few influences from the latter, such as the charge cannon parts coming out of Iron Man’s back.
The cel-shaded graphics are clearly meant to evoke a hand-drawn comic book style though, even if they seem a bit overdesigned for some of the characters.
The storyline is all-new and involves Doctor Doom battling his counterpart from 2099, which creates the sort of multiverse shenanigans that people weren’t entirely sick of when the game started development a few years ago.
Galacta, daughter of Galactus, also seems to be involved and we think that’s meant to be her narrating at the beginning.
If you’re intrigued, then a closed alpha is planned for May, which you can sign up for here. It’s not clear what that suggests about a public release, but we wouldn’t be surprised if there was an open alpha or beta later this year.
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