Marvel Rivals is getting a hero per month & shorter seasons: 'The adventure is just beginning'

Marvel Rivals' Season 2 update is on the way, and with it comes the Hellfire Gala featuring Emma Frost and the villainous Ultron. However, NetEase Games has bigger plans for the game's future rollout, planning to release a hero per month, and shaving the game's season length by a third.

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Credit: NetEase Games

Since its launch, Marvel Rivals has seen four 'Fantastic' additions to the roster, with Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, The Thing, and Johnny Storm joining the cast in February. The game currently has 37 playable heroes, and starting with Season 2 on April 11, that number will continue to grow with the addition of the X-Men Comics' Emma Frost and Avengers supervillain Ultron.

While the game's first and second seasons follow a three-month schedule, game director Guangyun Chen has highlighted NetEase's plans to speed up the content rollout, promising a new hero per month, and a two-month season rotation moving forward.

"After intensive internal discussions and thorough evaluations, we've decided that starting from Season 3, the seasons will shift to a two-month format, with new heroes debuting each month." Chen said.

The eight-week pace promised by the studio is largely unprecedented for a live-service game, with popular titles like Fortnite and Call of Duty following 3-month cycles, and the game's closest competitor, Overwatch 2, operating on nine-week seasons. One of the key reasons, he cited, was to keep "audience excitement alive" and to help "fulfill the player's fantasies" around Marvel superheroes.

"Our goal is to keep the audience's excitement alive - just like our opening month. The real adventure with Marvel Rivals is just beginning." he explained.

The new schedule accompanies a myriad of changes to team-up abilities, mission systems, and cosmetic features - while also planning to upgrade network protocols, introduce new balancing changes, and competitive tweaks.

Players can jump into Marvel Rivals Season 2: Hellfire Gala, when it launches April 11.