Marvel Rivals Review

gaming, PC, playstation, xbox

Marvel Rivals has been talked about quite a bit throughout 2024, a year that has not been good to multiplayer games in general. Some of the biggest hero shooters out there have taken quite a beating, and many live service games have been shut down this year. Suicide Squad, Foam Stars, and not to mention Concord. Its even harder for games trying to break in to the hero shooter genre. The community for it has been…well…thinner than it used to. The question is, does Marvel Rivals have what it takes to rank itself among the greats and have staying power? I hope to help you find those answers.

You play in 6V6 matches, with modes like quick match, competitive (unlocked at LVL 10), conquest, and A.I practice. In quick match, you will be assigned to defending a position, attacking a position, securing cargo, or protect the cargo as it moves to the enemy base. The conquest mode is essentially team deathmatch. A.I. practice matches you with real players while you go up against your choice of easy, medium, or hard A.I. enemies.

There are 33 characters to play as in Marvel Rivals. Below is a list of all those characters.

Adam Warlock
Black Panther
Black Widow
Captain America
Cloak and Dagger
Doctor Doom
Dr. Strange
Groot
Hawkeye
Hela
Hulk
Iron Fist
Iron Man
Jeff The Land Shark
Loki
Luna Snow
Magik
Magneto
Mantis
Moon Knight
Namor
Peni Parker
Psylocke
Rocket Raccoon
Scarlet Witch
Spider-Man
Squirrel Girl
Star-Lord
Storm
The Punisher
Thor
Venom
Winter Soldier
Wolverine

There are three different types of classes. Vanguards, Duelists, and Strategists. To put it in basic terms, assault, healers, and tanks respectively. While Hawkeye can certainly do some damage, you can die a lot easier than say doctor strange could. (Doctor Strange is a fantastic tank.).

Each character has 3-4 skills that pertain to their class role. As Luna Snow the healer, she has a move set that is great for doing high damage in small bursts when backed into a corner. She primarily zips quickly around the map healing your teammates at a speed unmatched.

Since we are on the topic of skills, let’s talk about ultimate abilities. Each character has an ultimate, since Luna Snow is a healer, her ultimate will heal players in a large radius quickly and consistently. Basically ensuring your team doesn’t die while you capture a zone. Every characters ultimate is vital to the teams success. Another example is Jeff the shark, arguably the most over powered character in the game. His ultimate is to go under water (under the surface) and swallow all enemies in a large radius. He is capable of consuming the entire team and throwing them all off a cliff. Think we are done talking about abilities? NOPE. This is a hero shooter, emphasis on hero, so of course there is one more thing.

Team up abilities! This is one of the big highlights of the game. Let me explain; if you choose Hela, and two of your teammates choose Thor and Loki, upon every KO Hela lands, she will instantly revive Thor and Loki if they are downed. As Venom, you would give Spider-Man symbiotic powers while receiving a buff to your damage as well. There is a slew of these team up abilities across all the characters.

Every day there are new challenges. Then you will have weekly challenges along with seasonal challenges. There are three currencies: Â Lattice, Units, and Chrono Tokens.

Lattice Tokens are the currency you buy with real money. 1$USD equals 100 Lattice Tokens. You can use these tokens to convert them in to chrono tokens or units, whichever you prefer.

Chrono Tokens are used to unlock battle pass rewards while Units are used for buying cosmetics in the store.

The season pass is very affordable. In the US it’s only $5USD/500 Lattice Tokens. If you want the premium battle pass that grants you exclusives skins and extra Chrono Tokens, you can pay $11USD/ 1,050 Lattice Tokens to get the premium pass. The skins are awesome, it feels you can’t go wrong no matter what skin you can unlock.

The Pros

The massive list of heroes feels endless. Much like a fighting game, I’ll play as a character I like and want to master them all. But so often I’m needed as a tank or healer. Which is fine with me because the game shines in it’s character variety. I love Marvel but many characters from the game are ones I only know from playing Marvel Snap. With that said, the love, care, and attention the developers put in to these characters is what makes this game shine most of all. The way characters interact with each other while you wait to start the game, or the way magneto will say something snarky if you kill storm is such a cool touch that shows how much the developers care for the IP they are working with.

Every character feels perfect for the role they were given in the game. Shout out to how great it feels to play as Spider-Man. There was never a role I played where I felt useless. I felt the need to try every character, and It never ceased to stop being fun!

The environment is destructible. This is the coolest destruction mechanics since Battlefield 2042. Scarlet Witch’s ultimate ability sets off a magical nuclear explosion that damages the environment. It doesn’t stop at destruction, as some maps will move around depending on timing or who has captured the “hill” so to speak.

If you are into achievements this game has really fun achievements that are specific to each hero and very specific scenarios. So yes, they are hard achievements to obtain. But in my opinion, that’s better than giving me a 50G achievement for turning on my Xbox. #makeacheivmentsgreatagain

The Cons

If you are here to win, bring a friend or be a team player. Many people just want to play assault, which this game enables you to play as any class despite lack of healers or tanks. Without the team being evenly dispersed in to those classes, you will lose. You will also lose if you run off on your own. What’s the point in having a healer if they can’t see you? The game could benefit greatly by putting a cap on how many players can play what class.

This is a Free to Play game, which in and of itself is a pro and a con. While you can obtain things without spending money, it is extremely grindy. You will spend multiple days completing challenges before getting close to unlocking a skin in the store. The battle pass isn’t as hard, but as of now, you can only do so much to progress through the battle pass in a day. Once you’ve completed all challenges, there is no sort of progression other than profile challenges. Those do have rewards but can prove very challenging with a small payoff.

I am also surprised to see that this game has no cross-progression. I would love to see them implement that so I could play the game across all my devices.

Performance

This game runs on unreal engine 5. So if you are playing on PC, expect to have some stuttering issues. I’ve had friends share with me that their game consistently crashes on their 2080Ti. While I played only a small amount on PC, I didn’t have any issues personally. But getting consistent frames was extremely difficult despite turning on low settings.

I reviewed this game on Xbox Seires X and had an absolutely flawless experience with it on there.

The best part about it’s performance is the amount of time it takes to find a match. You can almost depend on finding a match instantly.

Summary

I can’t help but point out that I see a lot of haters saying this game wouldn’t be successful without the IP. I think Crystal Dynamic’s Marvel Avengers is proof that IP isn’t everything. It’s the love and care put into how the characters are crafted that shines through to make this game unique and make you feel like you are playing the definitive Marvel experience. Leaving IP out of the conversation, this hero shooter is worthy of your time when so many are fighting for it. I urge you to download and give this game a proper shot. Whether you are flying around shooting missiles as Iron Man or throwing 10,000 punches in .01 second as Iron Fist, you will truly feel like you are a hero in this well crafted shooter game.