Sometimes, I wonder if reducing every game down to an elevator pitch is ruining the way we talk about games. I get why marketing likes to do it – when you hear Rise of the Ronin is ‘Assassin’s Creed meets Nioh&r꧂squo;, it instantly gives you a general idea of what the game feels like to play, while also pulling in the fans of those popular games. But taking those shortcuts to describe games can often create wrong associations that lead to unfair expectations.
Noticing trends can be useful, but just because two games have some things in common doesn’t mean they’re the same. Case in point: NetEase’s just-🌱announced Marvel Rivals has already been nicknamed Marvel Overwatch. ꧅Not only is that putting a lot of pressure on the game to be something it’s clearly not, but there are also other games in the genre that would make for a more accurate comparison.
It’s not surprising that Marvel Overwatch is already the shorthand for Marvel Rivals. Iꦑt’s a 6v6 character-based competitive online game that lands somewhere between MOBA and objective-based team game. Overwatch is to the hero shooter what Fortnite is to the battle royale, so when people saw Iron Man and Rocket Raccoon firing lasers at each other on a map that looks suspiciously like Numbani,ꦯ of course Overwatch was the first game that came to mind. The UI sells the comparison even more. When I saw each character had an ability on ‘Shift’ and ‘E’ and an Ultimate on ‘Q’, my mind went straight to Overwatch too.
No, Marvel Riva💖ls Has Not Turned Galactus Into A Woman
Galacta is confusing quite a lot of Marvel fans.
But the more I’ve watched the trailer, the more I’ve found that comparisons to Overwatch fall short. The skill expression between the two games is just too differen🍌t to warrant the comparison, even if their genres have plenty of overlap. Overwatch is a first-person shooter with a heavy꧙ emphasis on the shooter aspect. All but three heroes have ranged attacks as their primary weapon, and the emphasis of the game is on precision aiming, positioning, sight lines, and tactical team-based strategy.
When I look🅷 at Marvel Rivals’ gameplay - what little of it is shown in the reveal trailer - I see a third-person brawler, not a hero shooter. Smite, a third-person MOBA that leans heavily into skill shots, is probably a better comparison to Marvel Rivals than Overwatch. An even bette🀅r one might be Ninja Theory’s short-lived 3v3 brawler, Bleeding Edge.
Like Marvel Rivals, Bleeding Edge ✤featured nearly a dozen characters to choose from, and while a few of them had ranged weapons, most were melee fighters. The gameplay was less focused on tracking your targets with precision aiming and landing headshots like Overwatch, and more focused on high-energy team battles. The winner was the player with more effective cooldown management, timing, and command over the arena itself.
Similar to Marvel Rivals, Bleeding Edge tried to emphasize the different strengths of each character through their movement. When I see Black Panther leaping and dashing around the battlefield and Magik swinging her Soulsword while bouncing in and out of portals, Bleeding Edge is the only game that comes toꦏ mind.
No one is calling this Marvel’s Bleeding Edge because most people don’t remember Bleeding Edge even existed, which is another reason why it’s a better comparison than Overwatch. Bleeding Edge launched in 2020 into an already over-saturated market. It failed to capture an audience like so many other post-Overwatch games, including LawBreakers, Gigantic, Palﷺadins, and Battleborn, just to name a few. Ninja Theory shut it down within a year.
Overwatch hasn’t had the best reputation among fans ever since Bungie slapped a 2 on it and started charging $20 for skins, but it remains the most prominent and successful game in its genre. It reached a level of success few games achieve and any would be grateful for, Marvel Rivals included. I’m not counting it out, but the chances that Netease, a company only known for its heinous microtransactions and little else, is going to deliver a hit PVP shooter in the waning days of the genre’s popularity… Let's just say I have more faith in a Bleeding Edge revival than Marvel Rivals becoming the next Overwatch.
