Marvel Rivals hero shooter explodes onto Steam with 444,000 peak players

NetEase's new Marvel game proves there's plenty of room for competition in the hero shooter genre.

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Today, Marvel Rivals enjoyed a successful global launch onto consoles and PC. The free-to-play hero shooter has exploded onto the PC market and could be a contender for another top live service game. At launch, Rivals managed to break over 440,000 concurrent users on Steam. The game is currently not loaded into the PS Store best-seller tracker so we don't know how popular the game is on PlayStation. After this major milestone is reached, one big question remains: Can NetEase and Marvel keep up this momentum with seasonal updates?

The F2P PVP hero shooter has gained significant attention for its multiverse character designs and overall monetization strategy. Rivals packs in an eclectic variety of 33 different comic heroes across a wide range of series, all of which are wrapped up in an evolving narrative-driven storyline that will expand with new seasonal updates. If done right, Marvel could have its own Overwatch-Fortnite hybrid.

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Monetization is also a major attraction point for Marvel Rivals. NetEase has promised not to add any pay-to-win mechanics into Rivals and that battle passes would never expire, similar to what Halo Studios did for Halo Infinite.

"We know the topic that's been the subject of discussion among the community has been monetization. Above all, we want to remind the players that we are never going to charge for power, and there will be no pay-to-win schemes," said Rivals' creative director in a recent video.

"So to start, at launch, we're rolling out a battle pass packed with costumes and cosmetic goodies. Since season 0 only lasts about a month, the season 0 pass has half the content of a full seasonal battle pass and is priced accordingly. The store will be regularly updated."

The game launched into Season 0, a Dr. Doom-themed storyline, and season 1 is set to begin early January 2025.