The Marvel Rivals launch on December 6 has been extremely successful, with the official X account posting that they have seen 10 million players try out the game within the first 72 hours.
The new six-versus-six Marvel-themed team shooter was developed by Chinese company NetEase and is free to play on Steam, Epic, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.
The company posted in the early hours of Monday morning to express their gratitude for their player base. “We want to extend our heartfelt thanks to each and every one of you,” said the post on X.
🎉 In just 72 hours, we’ve reached an incredible milestone of 10 million players worldwide! 🎉
We want to extend our heartfelt thanks to each and every one of you. 🫶
Let’s ignite the battle together! 💖#MarvelRivals pic.twitter.com/5njTulx24e
— Marvel Rivals (@MarvelRivals) December 9, 2024
There is a huge range of Marvel Cinematic Universe characters in Marvel Rivals, from the ones we all know and love like Spider-Man, Iron Man, Hulk, Groot, and Wolverine, to more niche but just as beloved characters like Squirrel Girl and Jeff the Land Shark.
It launched to huge numbers on Steam, hitting an all-time peak on December 8 of 480,990 concurrent players on the platform, with many others joining from consoles. It might be too successful, as many players struggle to connect with an error stating “Unable to connect to the server. Please check your network and restart the game.” Players posting about this issue are being directed to the game’s official Discord to seek assistance.
How does Marvel Rivals play?
Players are seemingly enjoying the fast-paced and engaging combat Marvel Rivals features. Many responses to the post on X describe the game as “fun” which is a surprisingly easy-to-overlook but vital component to a comic book game.
However, some have noticed that at its core, it bears a stark resemblance to Blizzard’s Overwatch 2. In a now-deleted post on X, former Blizzard President Mike Ybarra called it “Overwatch Marvel Rivals”, and said that it’s a clone along the same lines as Tencent’s Light of Motiram, which earned criticism when announced for being extremely similar to Horizon Zero Dawn as well as borrowing key concepts from multiple other successful games.
Former Blizzard President Mike Ybarra calls Marvel Rivals "An Overwatch Clone" in a now Community Noted and Deleted tweet.
We cooked his ass 😋 pic.twitter.com/IRMxF3tQCE
— Marvel Rivals Intel (@MarvelRivalsNew) December 6, 2024
Ybarra went on to accuse Black Widow of being a direct copy of Overwatch’s Widowmaker, which resulted in a community note that pointed out that Black Widow far predates Widowmaker, being a character first created in the 1960s. Ybarra has deleted his post, but screenshots remain.
Featured image credit: NetEase
