7 Things Marvel Rivals Players Want For the Game in 2026

Marvel Rivals had a pretty massive first year between 2024-2025. There was the addition of many new heroes, new game modes, limited-time events, and new features to enjoy along the way. However, as the free-to-play shooter heads into its second year from 2025 to the end of 2026, there are hundreds of ideas that fans would love to see the developers add. While not every concept can make it into the game, some ideas being discussed are quite popular among the community. Here are 10 things Marvel Rivals could add in 2026 to continue building on the success of the game.

More Villains

Marvel Rivals already has quite an extensive roster. However, only a tiny percent of this roster consists of villains. With a whole new year of character additions to come, a pivot to include a handful of villains throughout the year would satisfy a lot of fans. Plus, it would also add some really fun and interesting hero interactions, as well as the potential for some unique Team-Ups to come from the more antagonistic individuals across the franchise. Some of the most popular picks from the community for villains that they would like to see in the game include Thanos, Doctor Doom, Mystique, and Doc Ock, among others. As for if any of them will actually appear on the roster anytime soon...well, players will simply have to wait and see!

More Main Gameplay Mode Maps

Maps are a highly important aspect of the game. After all, things start to feel repetitive and boring if every match tends to take place in the same location. However, most recent new maps added to the game have been tied to new game modes, which are usually limited to arcade. Most recently, the one Resource Rumble map was removed entirely as of Season 6, due to being overwhelmingly unpopular with the community.

With seasonal map pool rotations, it can grow tiresome to have your match limited to just a handful of different locations every other season. There are just a few maps for each main Quick Play/Competitive gameplay mode, so it would be nice to see new maps roll out for these modes on a more regular basis, as opposed to being tied to arcade.

More Interactive Emotes & Universal Emotes

Emotes are a fun way for players to express themselves and get a laugh in-game, whether it be after making a play in your matches, or while hanging out in Times Square. Some of the most popular emotes to date have been the universal emotes and the interactive emotes. Universal emotes are dynamic poses or animations that can be added to any (or at least a large selection) of characters on the roster. Interactive emotes are emotes that two or more players can use in a combined action – such as the Emma Frost and Jeff the Land Shark cuddles emote, or the volleyball emote that came paired with the summer skins event a few seasons ago.

It would be great to see more emotes such as these, encouraging positive player interactions. There’s also quite literally endless potential for the stuff they could come up with – a Deadpool and Wolverine interactive emote, romantic gestures between some of the couples on the roster, silly universal dance emotes that can be used to craft the perfect Times Square dance mob...It’s often little things like this that bring a surprising amount of joy to players.

Optional Role Queue

One of the biggest divides between the Marvel Rivals community is whether the game should implement a Role Queue or not. Personally, I’m on the side where I don’t think this would improve the game, as it would alter queue times (as seen with Overwatch 2) and drastically affect many team comps and Team-Up abilities. The fact that you can flex your team as needed to work with Team-Ups is one of the unique aspects of Rivals, and Role Queue would limit how many Team-Ups could be put into play due to the 2-2-2 standard.

However, I do think a good in between would be to implement an optional role queue, where players can queue for a specific role, and if the matchmaking times take too long, it will automatically reassign them to the ‘flex’/regular queue, where they will be able to select any role as per usual. This would let players who really want to play Role Queue dive into some games, but also have less of a hindrance on the game as a whole, as things would ultimately need some serious changes and rebalancing if Role Queue was to arrive.

More Narrators/Announcers (Other Than Galacta)

Galacta is the Marvel Rivals match announcer always yapping on about the players getting on the payload or contesting the objective. Most Marvel Rivals players have become fed up with the classic “Another epic victory, biiiiiig win!” or in some unfortunate situations, repetitive instances “Well, you can’t win them all...”

If you’ve found yourself wishing there were other options to cycle through other than Galacta, you’re not alone. This could perhaps be on a per-map basis, or even additional unlockables that players could purchase with Accessory Points or yet another earnable currency. We’ve already seen that this is possible with the addition of Khonshu as the announcer for the Marvel Rivals zombies mode, so it really would be great to see some more options. Popular characters that fans have discussed wanting to see as in-game announcers include Galactus, Doctor Door, Khonshu (for non-zombies modes), Spider-Ham, and more.

More Interactive Team-Ups

When Marvel Rivals launched, the concept of Team-Ups was one of the biggest selling points of the game, letting players combine their hero picks to unlock new abilities or interactions that can be used in combat. However, as the seasons have progressed, Team-Ups have become more ‘anchor hero unlocks a new ability for the partner hero’, rather than introducing her interactive mechanics.

Some of the best Team-Ups in the game are ones in which characters interact with one another to perform an action or special move. Rather than continuing the pattern of ability-based Team-Ups such as Hela and Namor, or Cloak & Dagger and Hawkeye, it would be phenomenal to see more interactive Team-Ups making their way into the game, much like Hulk and Wolverine, Captain America and Winter Soldier, or Groot, Jeff, and Rocket’s Team-Ups involve both players actually interacting with one another and working together.

More Alternate Variation Skins (Lady Loki)

Lastly, Marvel Rivals players love a good skin. The sheer number of different skins that are available and released throughout each season truly does keep the community coming back for more. If there’s one skin of 2025 that truly shone, it would be the Lady Loki skin, the first of its kind to completely change a hero's 3D model and voice acting.

However, with the release of this skin, many fans have immediately started discussing whether this could open up the doors for other similar concepts to make their way into the game. For example, some possible additions could be She-Hulk for Hulk, Gwen/Ghost Spider for Spider-Man, Captain Carter for Captain America, and Kate Bishop for Hawkeye, among numerous other possibilities.