It’s not too much of a surprise that NetEase’s free-to-play superhero shooter Marvel Rivals is being compared to Blizzard’s Overwatch; the DNA is clear in both critical and player reaction to the game. Yet some people are mad about the comparison and are even trying to claim the former is a ripoff of the latter in some areas, including former Blizzard president Mike Ybarra, who tried to argue the case but forgot that comic books have been around longer than video games.
Ybarra put forth a tweet that flung mud at Rivals, comparing it to the Horizon-like survivalbox Light of Motiram and claiming that Black Widow is a ripoff of Widowmaker. Twitter users responded by adding a context box that counters Ybarra’s claim, noting that Black Widow’s first appearance was in Tales of Suspense #52 back in 1964 – over 50 years before Widowmaker was conceived. This caused Ybarra to delete the tweet, but the internet never forgets.
Worth noting here is that Overwatch didn’t exactly invent the team shooter genre itself nor spring from the ether without influences; readers will recall that when Overwatch 1 launched in 2016, people called it a Team Fortress 2 clone, which seemed equally petty at the time.
Regardless of the opinions of critics, gamers, or grumpy millionaires, Marvel Rivals continues to do numbers, drawing in 10 million worldwide players in the last three days. The shooter’s huge release on Steam as well as the early access release of Path of Exile 2 both helped to bring in over 39M concurrent players to Steam over the weekend.
Former Blizzard President Mike Ybarra calls Marvel Rivals "An Overwatch Clone" in a now Community Noted and Deleted tweet.
We cooked his ass 😋 pic.twitter.com/IRMxF3tQCE
— Marvel Rivals Intel (@MarvelRivalsNew) December 6, 2024
