The already rapidly expanding Marvel Rivals roster could easily challenge decade-old character-based games like League of Legends and Dota 2 if NetEase gets the chance to keep designing heroes, with the developers declaring “no character off limits” as they plumb the comic books depths for new releases.
With over 9,000 unique (and multiverse-adjacent) characters spread across 84 years of rich narrative history in the Marvel universe, NetEase certainty has its pick of the litter. And, even better, they definitely plan to use them, Marvel Rivals executive producer Danny Koo said recently in an interview with VG247. “No character’s off limits,” he declared. “We have to pick the ones who are fun to look at, different, [and] fun to play.”
“We had [so many] characters to pick from, which is a good thing to have,” the Marvel Rivals producer said of choosing characters, “but [it leaves the devs] with a lot of considerations to make about who should be part of the roster and who fit both in terms of who they are, how they fit into this world, and the lore.”
Balance is going to be key too, Koo explained. While the developers could easily gravitate toward stuffing Marvel Rivals chock full of all the most famous characters in the Marvel pantheon, the team also wants to “throw in some curveballs and deep cuts.” That includes surprise picks like Jeff the Baby Land Shark—though he’s already had a surge in popularity in the ’20s thanks to how well-played he is in Marvel Snap.
Just haphazardly throwing characters at the wall isn’t NetEase’s style either. Instead, every entry into the roster needs to have a reason to exist in the Marvel hero shooter.
“We have a design philosophy for our characters where we have this central concept for each character and expand it out from there”, Zhiyong Feng, whose been working on the combat design for Marvel Rivals, explained in the same interview.
This has already best been seen with Rivals’ upcoming duo release, Captain America and the Winter Soldier. Cap’s design very clearly leans into protecting people with his iconic stars-and-stripes shield while dashing around the battlefield in an embodiment of his “I can do this all day” catchphrase from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Similarly, Bucky Barnes enters as a Winter Soldier version themed around weaponry.
All this news from the Marvel Rivals devs does now beg one question: Who will we see join the hero shooter next when they expand the roster again in 2025. Characters from MCU vehicles like Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts (both releasing next year) make some sense crossover-wise. Other iconic characters like The Fantastic Four and daywalker Blade could be added for similar reasons.
For mine, I’m champing at the bit to see Scott Summers (a.k.a Cyclops) added to the roster. I already clearly love him—having picked him for the article feature image—and he’s one of my only favorites still missing; Spider-Man, Captain America, and Magneto are thankfully all in the game already or coming quite soon.
The most interesting though though is the Marvel Rivals team can clearly choose whoever they want next up. We’re really just going to have to wait and see.
Marvel Rivals will officially launch on Dec. 6 across PC and next-gen consoles.
