Marvel Rivals is possibly hoping that a bit of bread and circus will be distracting enough to smokebomb the fact that NetEase fired employees working on an evidently successful title: February 21st will herald the mid-season update for the hero shooter, which will bring on the remaining two members of the Fantastic Four and an all-new map.
The main attraction for the so-called Season 1.5 update is the arrival of the Human Torch and the Thing. Both characters fall into some pretty expected roles, with Torch being a DPS character who flies around to fling fire everywhere and the Thing bringing the clobberin’ as a melee-focused tank.
As for the new map, that takes players into Dracula’s stronghold within Central Park. Unsurprisingly, this new map is full of gothic creepy vibes, but surprisingly its reveal trailer also ends with a hint of Blade’s arrival to the roster later.
In addition to these two major additions, the next update will introduce other additions including balance adjustments that target the “triple-strategist threat” dominating play, tweaks for tank characters, and the promise to have at least one additional balance update for future mid-seasons if NetEase devs deem them to be urgent. There will also be those previously reported mid-season ranked updates that were tweaked following player outrage.
As mentioned earlier, all of this arrives as NetEase fired its developers in Seattle, Washington, which the company said in a statement was done “for organizational reasons and to optimize development efficiency,” was characterized as the company “investing more, not less, into the evolution and growth of this game,” and reassuring fans that core development from the shooter’s team in China would continue.
