Well-received superhero games are fairly rare, with the sporadic exception of Spider-Man for some reason. However, Marvel Rivals seems to be bucking this trend as people appear to be enjoying it. The fact that it is free to play doesn't hurt, but on its own, that's still no guarantee of success.
Giving a hero-shooter a Marvel coat of paint seems like such an obvious slam-dunk so it’s surprising it has taken this long. So, if you’re keen to give it a go, you better check the Marvel Rivals system requirements first to make sure you can run it. Let’s take a look.
The requirements for Marvel Rivals are fairly mid-tier, which is nice as this makes it relatively accessible for PC gamers that are not running bleeding-edge and wallet-weeping hardware.
However, because this game is aimed at the competitive hero-shooter genre, FPS and refresh rate can really make a difference. So, even though it isn't particularly graphically intense, upgrading to a stronger GPU, a wireless gaming mouse, and perhaps a high-refresh rate gaming monitor has the potential to seriously increase your competitive performance. Whatever you choose to upgrade, increasing your frames per second is the aim of the game here.
There’s no better way to describe Marvel Rivals as Overwatch but with Marvel characters. This is no bad thing though, and results a refreshingly literal example of the Hero Shooter genre. Marvel’s collection of superheroes makes for plenty of variation in abilities between the characters you choose. Additionally, it’s more accessible as these characters are so widely known that everyone will have a good idea of what abilities any given character has before trying it.
It is also amusing to observe how the character design accomplishes a tricky balancing act trying to make the characters as recognizable as possible without accidentally making them look too much like Chris Evans or Benedict Cumberbatch.
Another thing to note about Marvel Rivals is that the sort-of-cell-shaded, sort-of-realistic visual style is reminiscent of the Spiderverse movies, which is a nice touch. This also increases visual clarity at a glance which is important for games like this. Muddy visuals must be avoided for competitive game design, so it would appear that the people at NetEase Games know what they’re doing.
Of course, only time will tell if this game continues to be popular, and continued support is crucial in order to build a competitive gaming scene. Future balance updates and careful implementation of microtransactions are aspects that will make or break Marvel Rivals. We shall see.