Marvel Rivals has left me wanting, despite fun moments
Marvel Rivals is here, kind of. There’s a closed beta going on right now and codes are slowly rolling out to thousands of fans. I’ve been dipping in and out of the game since the beta started and while I come to this as a fan of Overwatch - a game that heavily inspired this - and as a lover of all things Marvel, I sit here feeling pretty indifferent about my experience.
It’s not a bad game, but it’s forgettable, perhaps because it does feel so much like an Overwatch clone. Right down to the game modes and the heroes. Star-Lord feels a bit like Tracer, The Punisher plays like Soldier 76, and Magneto is the villain Reinhardt mains will be choosing. Of course, imitation isn’t a bad thing, especially in this industry. After all, Fortnite set the world alight and everyone chased the Battle Royale bubble, but something about Marvel Rivals feels like too little, too late.
The beta feels like an excuse to build hype as well as test out the servers as every hero is available to use and they’re all fully fleshed out. Throughout my games, I tried as many as I could and ended up liking The Punisher a lot. Mostly because he’s very much a ‘point and shoot’ type of hero, but his use of smoke grenades and grappling hook meant I didn’t stay in one place for long.
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In one game, I selected him and had a blast, literally and figuratively, though on reflection I had to rethink my opinion. Sure I was enjoying firing my assault rifle and switching to a shotgun, but my team’s composition was either perfect or the game needs a lot of balancing as we basically sat in front of the opposing team’s spawn and hosed them down as they emerged. By the end of that game, I hadn’t died once and totalled up 22 kills.
This issue with balance persisted throughout several games and only occasionally did we get a close call. Much of the time either I was on a team who wiped the floor with opponents or we were being smeared into the albeit gorgeous scenery. The idea of a close game doesn’t seem to exist, or I was out of luck.
Aside from the balancing issues, I will say that I love the visual style. It feels like a comic book, and obviously it should. The sketchy style of art is everywhere with a lovely mix of muted or eye-popping colours depending on the character you choose to play as. The in-team chatter between characters is delightfully well-written, though some of the voice acting is all over the place.
The environments are lush, if a little too clean - the destructive scenery goes some way to fixing that, but it’s only temporary and respawns tidying the area. This leaves each map feeling a bit neutered, surely in a world of heroes battling villains there would be more carnage?
Everything feels a bit sterile. The guns feel muted at times too, though this depends on who you’re using; the flying ability of some characters feels too rigid, and while I hate to say it, the idea of being a superhero or villain misses the mark. The Hulk, who dashes around as Bruce Banner with a gun before hulking out as an ‘ultimate’ ability honestly felt dull and limp. And therein lies one of the biggest issues, this is a world based on superpowers and none of them feel super.
Of course, this can’t be translated well - see the case of The Hulk - and I only ever felt ‘super’ when launching a meteor of metal at my enemy when trying out Magneto. Otherwise, everyone felt like an Overwatch hero in cosplay. Groot is useful for putting down walls made of branches - Mei dressed as a tree, and Storm can bombard foes from the air - Pharah would like a word, I started to wonder, should I just play Overwatch 2?
Having said that, this is a Marvel property and it’s great seeing these heroes and villains brought to life, plus it’ll draw in players upon launch due to that, and it being free-to-play. I think I would have had more fun with friends and I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on the full release as it’s likely the mechanics will be tightened up. It’s a beta I left thinking ‘it’s done what it needed to do’, which is to give me an extended demo period. I like what I see, but have reservations. It’s a good step in the right direction, but I have to wonder that when it does release, which isn’t until next year, will people care enough to play? Or will the hero shooter ship have sailed?
Topics: Marvel, Free Games, Steam, Xbox, PlayStation