For a little context of how this game became so big you would need to look at its competition overwatch. Overwatch is a online team shooter game where you would get paired with players to either capture a point, move a payload, or take percentage amounts.
When Overwatch released it did really well with players and people enjoyed how new and fresh it was. Until later in years the game had a decline in the years. So the company behind it blizzard responded by announcing they were going to make a sequel. As at the start the sequel did decently well. Until it had a decline again. Until during the summer of 2024 Marvel announced they were making a video game that was like Overwatch but a lot better.
Once the beta released certain players were able to play the game early until it was officially released. As one of the players who played the beta through release I enjoyed as not only just a marvel fan but also someone who generally enjoys video games. The game had a unique art style, good story background, and good gameplay. Marvel rivals was able to do what Overwatch didn’t which was listen to their fans. The problem with Overwatch was they made promises but never did while also didn’t listen to friends, while marvel rivals released it brought so many new mechanics and mechanics Overwatch promised but never did.
So after the beta closed players were excited as marvel rivals would slowly release trailers of each character. My friends Amel and Michael confidently said “this is the overwatch killer”. Then the official game released and it did massive numbers. It passed 20 million players in 3 weeks. The game was hit as many players enjoyed it. The roster started with 33 characters with unique designs and unique gameplay.
The voice cast for this was perfect since a lot of actors brought personality to their characters. As a combination of actors who played the characters before and new actors were amazing and fans loved it. Some examples are Yuri Lowenthal who voiced Spiderman and has I played him the playstation games, As well with Josh Keaton as Ironman which he played during another marvel game midnight suns with also Steve Blum who played Wolverine in games and tv for a decade.
As the new actors brought personality to underrated marvel characters who had time to shine. For example Xanthe Huynh as Dagger, Suzie Yeung as Invincible Women, Stephen Fu as Iron Fist and John Baily as Jeff the Landshark. The cosmetics were good as well since they made unique skins with outfits from the marvel cinematic universe.
The game also announced that there would be new characters every month and a half. Eventually we got our first season the announced four new characters which were the fantastic four. This brought more publicity since the trailer for the new movie came out weeks later. In response Overwatch did the desperate move. Which was to bring back old stuff in their glory days that was in popularity. The director of Overwatch did also admit they had competition. As with this Overwatch players numbers brought down with marvel rivals increasing in player count. Overwatch pros also completely switched to rivals. As finally from where its looking rivals is currently out eating Overwatch every way possible.
