Marvel Rivals Became The First True Competitor To Overwatch In Its First Year

Whether you love it or hate it, even through its worst days, Overwatch has held a firm grasp on the hero shooter genre. Sure, there have been a handful of games that have incorporated unique heroes and skills into their combat, like Valorant and Apex Legends, but nothing has straight-up looked at the Overwatch formula of team-based objective gameplay and applied it to its own game with the success that Marvel Rivals has.

It has now been a full year since Marvel Rivals initially launched, and in that time, it has been the first game since 2016 to really go head-to-head with Overwatch and grow a stable community. Sure, it’s not pulling the daily numbers it did at launch (it was never going to hold that momentum), but there is still a very passionate fanbase here that can keep this game running for the foreseeable future.

Let’s not pretend that NetEase and Marvel are some underdogs in this fight, but what Marvel Rivals has done to stand side-by-side with Overwatch should be celebrated.

How to Compete with the Boss: Have an Endless Roster to Pull From

Even in the lead-up to its release on December 6, 2024, Marvel Rivals was looking to make an impact on how we looked at games like Overwatch. What franchise could possibly be better suited for a genre called the hero shooter than Marvel? Superheroes with their unique abilities and personalities are what made Marvel a household name to begin with. Even if you don’t read comics, you likely have a great understanding of who Spider-Man, Iron Man, and Captain America are.

Where so many other games have fallen off when they try to implement a cast with so many unique characters is that they don’t have anything to make players care about those characters. For Overwatch, the gameplay feels great all across the board. No matter your playstyle, there is a hero that likely applies to you. Not only that, the lore and Blizzard cinematics pulled people in to fall in love with the world, even though there was no story mode to speak of.

For Marvel Rivals, all of that work has been done way ahead of time. All NetEase needed to do was pluck from the continuous list of names that tons of people have already fallen in love with and make their gameplay feel true to how everyone knows that character. With the resources a conglomerate like this Chinese company has, it can promise to continually add more recognizable names over time. At launch, there were 33 playable characters, and since then, 11 have been added. We currently sit at 44 playable characters on a 6v6 game, and there is no sign of it slowing down, with many notable Marvel names yet to be even mentioned.

Fan Service Wins

So Marvel Rivals was able to bring people in by giving characters that people love, but how could they keep people coming back? With fan service skins. Whether it is selling various costumes from the Marvel Cinematic Universe or showing off the skin by putting everyone in some risqué swimming suits, this game knows what its audience will pull out the wallet for.

In some ways, it is kind of impressive just how shameless Marvel Rivals is with its regular release of scantily-clad super attractive people fighting it out for an objective. Comics definitely have a history of oversexualizing their characters, especially the women, but it has been something else to see the skins on display here.

Whether you think that is a good or a bad thing is completely up to you, but the fact of the matter is, it has worked. While the Marvel Rivals gameplay is comparable enough to Overwatch, it still needed something to get players to dig in and stay. The promise of more gooner skins is enough to make people want to financially support a game, not just play it.

Where Does Marvel Rivals Go From Here?

So, what’s next for Marvel Rivals? The player count since launch has definitely dropped. These days, it is standing on pretty comparable ground to Overwatch from a player count view, which is a good area to stay in.

Both of these games can continue to co-exist and compete for their respective players’ time. On both sides, they are putting out new features, modes, and heroes, and that is a good thing. For Marvel Rivals, it can continue to focus on being fun, and maybe that’s enough. Balance has been a big question concerning the game in the last year, and NetEase doesn’t appear to be too worried about turning away from the casual crowd, considering where a lot of that money is coming from.

Marvel Rivals was able to carve out its own niche in the ultra-competitive hero shooter market and proved that it can succeed in vying for players. It didn’t need to establish a jaw-dropping roster when it already had it in hand. Its gameplay can definitely be compared to Overwatch, but the reliance on fan service and offering the casual experience makes it something we will likely be talking about for years to come.