The latest free-to-play superhero brawler has just made an entrance on Steam with a dramatic superhero landing, and boy, it’s already making waves. Marvel Rivals, developed by NetEase, comes packed with a seriously stacked roster of Marvel’s finest. Think of it as a hero-shooter that’s had a baby with Overwatch — and not the awkward kind of baby, but the cool, well-dressed kind.
Despite the MCU’s occasional slump and the fact that the market is packed with superhero and hero-shooter options, Marvel Rivals is off to a pretty solid start. SteamDB reports the game hit a peak of 444,286 concurrent players right out of the gate. As of writing this, it's around 2pm in the UK and still riding high with 257,810 active players. And that’s just Steam! The game is also available on Xbox and PlayStation, so you can bet the total concurrent player count is well over a million across all platforms. NetEase hasn’t confirmed that number yet, but I’m feeling pretty confident here.
The early reviews are even more promising. Marvel Rivals has already racked up over 7,000 reviews on Steam, currently sitting with a “Mostly Positive” rating. Given how many games launch these days with buggy servers and missing features, that's pretty impressive. A lot of the positive buzz is centered around the fact that all characters are unlocked from the get-go (take that, grind!), and Battle Passes are permanent rather than limited-time. Imagine that — a game that actually wants you to enjoy it instead of pressuring you into buying another pass!
I’ve never been the biggest fan of hero-shooters or multiplayer games in general lately, but hey, Spider-Man’s in it, and I’m not about to miss the chance to swing around as the Wall-Crawler. Looks like I’ll be giving this one a spin after all.
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