Marvel has just released the trailer for their upcoming hero shooter, Marvel Rivals. The game will include a sizeable roster of iconic superheroes competing against each other in an arena-shooter setting. The game looks like it takes cues from popular hero shooters of today, such as Overwatch and Apex Legends, to craft iconic and unique kits for each hero and pit them against each other. It will be interesting to see if the game is able to make an impact instantly upon arrival and whether it is able to generate interest over time to potentially form the foundations of a legitmate esport.
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Marvel Rivals Official Trailer Launched: Everything We Know Until Now
Marvel Rivals is a 6v6 multiplayer shooter. This feels like the blend of the well-recognized games of Marvel Ultimate Alliance and Overwatch. Overwatch was one of the first shooter games to consist of unique characters having unique abilities & weapons in the game. In Marvel Rival, some of the fan-favorite characters from the Avengers, X-Men, and even the Guardians of the Galaxy would be present.
At launch, there will be 16 playable agents in the game. This will include the likes of Black Panther, Storm, Iron Man, Spiderman, Rocket, Groot, Hulk, and many more. The game will be launched as a free-to-play shooter for only PC. Each character in the game will have various abilities to them and an ultimate, similar to the likes of VALORANT agents. There is another interesting detail about this game which is the “Team Up Skill”
In Marvel Rivals, two characters in one team can team up for a combination move that would involve both the characters. One example shown in the trailer is consisting of Groot and Rocket. Once the “Team Up Skill” is activated, Rocket jumps on Groot and starts outputting quite a lot of damage to the opponents from his weapon. Currently, there is no information on when can fans expect the game to out worldwide. One must note that there is a closed alpha in May which players can apply on the Marvel Rivals website.
On the form for the Alpha test, the following specifications are required to be eligible. We believe that this would be the recommended specifications required to run the game smoothly. The following are the recommended specs:
- Windows 10 64-bit
- Processor: Intel Core i5-6600K or AMD Ryzen 5 1600X
- Memory: 12 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 or AMD RX 580
- DirectX: Version 12
- Network: Broadband Internet connection
- Storage: 70 GB available space
Marvel Rivals Character Art Controversy
On the Twitter post announcing the game, there was a quote tweet that garnered a lot of attention. This tweet was by the user William 巴特尔 ᠪᠣᠷᠵᠢᠭᠢᠨ Bao (@willthebao) who is the Character Concept Artist at id Software, the makers of the game DOOM. In his quote tweet he stated the following:
I remember working on this with NetEase over COVID-19, they did not pay for the work I did at the end and it was one of the most directionless projects I've ever had the misfortune of working on.
Most of the feedback during concept boiled down to: "look at this thing from this other thing and copy it." At one point the reference image provided was literally a piece of concept art that was trending on artstation on that same day smfh
He continued to state the following in the tweet thread on X:
Back then I was young and hungry. This goes out to all younger artists in this industry, don't ever do "free" art tests. If you're good enough then you deserve to be payed for your time. Any work you do during these "tests" are company properties and could be used in the end.
When a user by the name @tillfreitag asked @willthebao if he was still not paid, he stated the following:
Not at all, I started to get suspicious around the start of week 3. They kept on saying its just a style test for the project, but the feedback kept on getting more and more specific. No "art test" lasts that long. Can only imagine how much free work they got out of "art tests"
There has been no reply from the side of NetEase related to these comments. If there is then the article will be updated with the latest information