For a game that most gamers might have brushed off as “Overwatch at home,” NetEase’s newly released free-to-play team shooter Marvel Rivals appears to be making a pretty big splash after its first day of launch, with some impressive player concurrency numbers, overall favorable reviews, and the kinds of problems that always plague online games.
The shooter’s launch was heralded by a trailer all about its Season 0, an FAQ, and a post that lays out plenty of hype over its 6v6 makeup, team-up abilities, and destructible environments, while also promising continued updates every season that bring new heroes and maps. The post also hands out a free Iron Man skin by redeeming code nwarh4k3xqy until March 5th.
Of course, it hasn’t all been plain sailing, as Rivals apparently has a Steam-specific bug that prevents players from buying stuff; unsurprisingly NetEase has a workaround for players to use while it works to resolve the issue. Players are also reporting server problems that are erroneously dinging legit players as ragequitters, day-one cheaters (because of course there are), and complaints about UI menus and some other odd bugs.
As for its reception, the multi-platform shooter has so far received what appear to be some mixed critical reviews, with some calling it a bit too close to its primary competition and others calling it “a huge W” and the kind of competition Overwatch needs.
Looking at player response forces us to once more rely on the single facet of Steam, where things certainly look sunny right now. The game is currently at “mostly positive,” with user reviews lauding Rivals’ fun gameplay and completely fair monetization. It’s also drawn in an impressive concurrency of over 444K in its first peak and nearly 300K players in-game as we type this.
