It’s been nearly two months since the launch of Marvel Rivals, and it’s hard to imagine things going any better for the game. Right out of the gate, Rivals hit enormous player counts, registering over 20 million players. Ever since the game has maintained staggering numbers of concurrent players and suffered from almost no issues in terms of server problems or crashes. That’s not even to mention the flood of new content and extra heroes. Rivals has made a big splash, but it feels like the game is primed to have the legs to really take over the hero shooter scene. It might even be able to deliver on a long-lost promise dropped by Overwatch 2 — a real and robust player versus enemy mode.
Overwatch wasn’t the first hero shooter to ever exist, but when the game launched in August 2023 it completely redefined the genre through the smart use of highly unique characters, specific roles, and even a dose of fascinating story and lore. Yes, the bones of Overwatch’s gameplay was incredible, but part of what drove its success was also the dozens of character intros, animated trailers, and snippets of dialogue between characters. Unlike most other multiplayer games, Overwatch had a rich universe filled with lore. Characters were complex and had pasts and relationships with other characters. I know it sounds simple, but that really was one of the revolutionary elements of Overwatch — it made people actually care about the characters they were playing. They weren’t just faceless avatars.
Overwatch 2’s story missions had a good idea but ultimately didn’t land with players due to a lack of replayability and a steep asking price.
But Overwatch also seemed like the kind of game you could simply iterate on forever, which is why it was a surprise when the sequel was announced. Years later, we can see the mismanagement that took place with Overwatch 2, but one of the core promises of what the sequel could develop on, when it was announced, was that sense of story. Blizzard had huge plans for Player-versus-Enemy co-op content, with additional packs for extra cost that would add on new story missions on top of hero missions that would be for specific characters.
It all sounded great initially, finally delivering on that rich story setup that’s been there from day one. Unfortunately, we only ever saw a handful of story missions released during Season 6, before PvE content was scrapped entirely. Blizzard said it was because of low sales, but the content itself also lacked the spark that the rest of Overwatch had.
The story missions added little to the game, didn’t utilize the narrative in really interesting ways, and had zero replayability. That last point is a huge problem for a game that people are supposed to play over and over for years.
Marvel Rivals has the perfect setup for co-op missions, and heroes that have a lot of interesting synergy together in gameplay.
No other hero shooter has been able to capitalize on that idea of story content, and that’s what brings us to Marvel Rivals. For one thing, Rivals has momentum that we haven’t seen in a hero shooter since Overwatch. Players are flocking to the game because it’s different, but that veneer of the Marvel Universe still means it's inherently familiar. The game isn’t obsessed with balancing and revels in absurdity and fun, and post-launch content has only helped to strengthen that. The two limited-time events we’ve seen are basically Rivals’ take on Splatoon and Rocket League. Netease isn’t afraid to break the mold, and it’s easy to see how co-op could be integrated into that formula.
For one thing, a hero shooter entirely focused on unbalanced fun is likely the only one that could actually do it. While games like Overwatch are constantly applying new balances and tweaks, if Rivals really sticks to that vision there’s a lot of room for simply creating new content. The game has also taken a player-first approach, making new heroes entirely free and monetizing strictly through cosmetics and costumes. That’s an approach that could equally work here, but the key factor is Marvel itself.
Rivals already has a storyline that’s been established, with two versions of Doctor Doom warring over the multiverse — and players duking it out to stop them. There’s actually a surprising amount of story tucked away in each character’s personal page, with bits of lore you can unlock by playing as them. Each season will also have a theme that moves the story along, like how Season 1 sees Dracula invading the streets of New York, and the Fantastic Four as the only ones to stop him.
There’s already a ton of story in Marvel Rivals if you dig into it, and play as a wide array of characters — but it could go so much further.
This setup feels picture-perfect for a co-op scenario, where four players team up as the Fantastic Four and fight off hordes of demons. But Marvel, in general, is a gargantuan machine that releases movies, TV shows, comics, games, and more every year. Co-op scenarios could be designed to release alongside big moments in the larger Marvel ecosystem. Imagine when Docter Doom finally appears in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Rivals has a new co-op story that has you going up against its version of Doom. There are countless stories and characters to draw inspiration from, the possibilities are quite literally endless.
Marvel Rivals has proven how much life could still lie in the hero shooter genre, but it simultaneously shows how tired and similar a lot of those other games have become. Things like Overwatch, Apex Legends, and Valorant still have dedicated player bases and won’t be going anywhere, but Rivals has stormed onto the scene to show there’s room for someone else. If Rivals really sticks around, it needs to innovate — and finally delivering on Overwatch’s lost promise could be the perfect way to do that.
