Marvel Rivals just came out and we, of course, spent the day on it. So, how does this Overwatch-like superhero style look? Here are our first impressions.
After various betas/handling, Marvel Rivals is finally available on PC, PS5, Xbox Series. This free-to-play – developed by the Chinese company NetEase – is off to a great start and intends to overshadow Overwatch with its host of superheroes: at launch, there are 33 playable characters. Obviously, who says Overwatch says hero shooter. Everyone here is entitled to their own skills, and it will be up to each team to determine the composition that will bring them to victory. For the rest, Marvel Rivals offers 6v6 matches and three main game modes: Domination, Escort and Convergence (the latter being a mixture of the first two rules). There's also Conquest, team deathmatch. Oh and, as you can see, it's a TPS.
I'm not going to hide it from you, I'm neither an Overwatch fan nor a Marvel fan… Which doesn't mean that I don't know a good game when I see one! And that's quickly what I said to myself when faced with Marvel Rivals. It's unclear how long NetEase's stock was in gestation, but all this smells like a neat and controlled project. I was hooked from the first match: each character has varied abilities, which benefit from a nice job on the animation and impact of the blows. We also note a real effort in artistic direction and technique, where cel-shading mixes with 2D effects straight out of a comic book.
A good first impression which was confirmed over the course of the games… As mentioned above, Marvel Rivals does not stand out by its game modes but by its – impressive – roster of superheroes. Because yes, 33 headliners at the launch, that’s a lot! All these beautiful people are available from the start and do not require reaching a certain level (only ranked games are unlocked at level 10), which can be a little “overwhelming”. Fortunately, NetEase provides several training options to try all this out. Character powers also benefit from detailed descriptions accessible in one click, even in the middle of a game. For the moment, there are 8 tanks, 7 supports and 18 DPS. On the card side, there are eight. On each map, part of the scenery is destructible.
A world of possibilities
Once you have familiarized yourself with all that, Marvel Rivals runs on its own: you enjoy carefully choosing your hero according to the choice of others (duplicates are not accepted and in Quick Play, it is possible to change heroes). character in the middle of a match). Above all, here, there is an additional subtlety when composing your team. These are the Associations. Basically, when two specific protagonists are side by side on the battlefield, they can trigger a bonus skill. When Scarlet Witch supports Magneto for example, the latter can call upon an enchanted sword. When it's Thor/Captain America, the lightning god's electricity infuses the patriot protector's shield, and so on. Marvel Rivals currently has 15 associations, which opens the way to very exciting tactical perspectives. With the addition of a balancing that is already completely correct – we have not noticed any particular oddities – the game has a future on the competitive scene.
In the end, we just noticed some readability issues when several players drop their ultimate or even a simple skill in the same place. Certain attacks are, in fact, entitled to a rather “flashy” presentation. Ah, and the collisions when Spidey or Venom ends up in a wall because of their webs, that's not it yet… For the rest, there's no denying it, NetEase has applied itself.
And that's our little opinion on Marvel Rivals. For a first handling, this Overwatch-like clearly convinced us. It's well done, there's content, the sensations are there and certain little touches set it apart from the competition. No pay-to-win program either. The battle pass, which obviously contains its share of premium items (to be purchased with real money), consists only of cosmetic rewards. In short, this all seems to be the start of a beautiful story. NetEase has already announced that season 1 will be released in January.
