Marvel Rivals exists at the exact cross-section of my interests. All it’s missing is a tie-in trading card game and a partnership with Popeye’s Chicken, and Marvel Rivals would check every single box on my list. I practically learned to read from stacks of old Marvel comic books, and I credit my obsessionꩵ with Overwatch for being the reason I work in games media today. Getting to play the marriage of those two things is a dream come true – or at least it was, for the first dozen hours.
Now that the bloom is off the rose and I’ve traded my fan boy hat for my critic hat, I’m noticing some pretty fundamental problems with Marvel Rivals that are going tꦜo keep it from being the Overwatch-killer everyone thinks it will be.
Rivals gives a fantastic first impression. The characters have tons of personality and do a great job capturing the phys💦icality and fighting style of their comic book counterparts. Matches are fast-paced and chaotic, offering many of the exciting moments that made the original Overwatch so much fun.
Concord And Marvel Rivals Are Two Side༒s Of The Sa🌟me Doomed Coin
Concord a🍒nd Marvel Rivals are doing things very differently, with very different results. But they may end up exactly the same.
Abilities are flashy and impactful, and the destructible environments add a lot to the superhero fantasy. I can see why people have been so taken by this game during the beta, and at first, I was too. But when you really put Rivals through its paces, it doesn’t have whꦍat it takes to hook people long-term the way Overwatch did.
There are a lot of little things that add up to make Rivals feel unpolished and half-baked. Hit 𝕴registration, the most important and foundational UI function in any shooter, is weirdly inconsistent and wholly unsatisfying. Important🃏 information on the HUD isn’t given visual priority, forcing you to spend valuable milliseconds searching for information when you should be focusing on the fight.
And focusing is a major challenge in Rivals thanks to visual clutter. While it can be fun to see your screen fill up with particle effects and flashing lights, from a competitive standpoint it makes t෴he game state unintelligible, which is something t🐷hat will hurt Rivals’ player retention long-term.
Rivals also has balance issues that are more profound than simple value adjustments to damage numbers and hitboxes. Its emphasis on flyi💎ng characters, support abilities, and one-shot ultimates are essential to creating a battlefield experience where everyone can feel like a superhero, but those same qualities are also contributing to a wildly unbalanced meta that’s going to get old quickly.
Speaking of getting old, I can’t play the same three maps anymore. I know this is a limitation of the beta, but the maps have worn out their welcome much faster than 🦄they should. I could replay almost any Overwatch map endlessly because of how thoughtfully designed they are. Rival’s maps don’t have the same level of craftsmanship.
Overall, Rivals feels 💃a lot like a mobile game ported to PC and console, which given the pedigree of its developers, isn’t that surprising. It's rough around the edges in a way that feels more ‘amateur’ than ‘still in-development’, and I think once the honeymoon phase is over, hero shooter fans are going to migrate back to other games. Marvel Rivals plays great with casual players, but this is the kind of game that requires a big healthy player base to survive long term, and I just don’t see that happening.
Ma🌸rvel Rivals Players Are Divided On Whether Jeff Is Ovﷺerpowered
Marvel Riv꧙als' best boi is ൲causing quite a stir in the meta.
