Marvel Rivals enjoyed an immediate huge launch, with over 440,000 concurrent players on Steam alone.
NetEase’s free-to-play Marvel-themed hero shooter saw a peak concurrent player count of 444,286 on Valve’s platform. But the true concurrent figure will be much higher given Marvel Rivals launched on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S also (Sony and Microsoft do not make player numbers public).
It seems to be going down well on Steam, too, with a ‘mostly positive’ user review rating from over 5,700 reviews (76% of the reviews are positive). Check out IGN’s Marvel Rivals Review in Progress to find out what we think.
For NetEase, it will be hoping not only to keep Marvel Rivals’ player count as high as possible for as long as possible (something that’s proved particularly tricky for live service games of late), but to make enough money from players to meet the company’s internal revenue projections. To that end, Marvel Rivals sells a battle pass and premium skins. But is it paying off? The game is currently third in Steam’s top-sellers list, which is sorted by revenue, behind only the pricey Steam Deck and Grinding Gear Games’ Path of Exile 2. This suggests Marvel Rivals is already convincing players to open their wallets.
Marvel Rivals launched alongside Season 0, dubbed Dooms’ Rise. This month-long kick-off season starts with a total of 33 heroes, all available to play for free, eight maps for Quick Match and Competitive modes, a Conquest map, and a Practice Range. Dooms’ Rise serves as the opening chapter “for the chaos caused by each of Doctor Dooms’ time experiments colliding and unleashing the Timestream Entanglement,” NetEase said.
There’s a Twitch Drops event for Season 0, as you’d expect from a live service game of this type, an ‘Entangled Moments’ seasonal event to unlock spray rewards, gallery card rewards, and stories for completing tasks, and a global launch gift: a special code for a free Iron Man costume.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
