“Marvel Rivals,” a very popular third-person hero-style shooter game produced by NetEase Games, just wrapped up its first full season and has introduced us to the new season and update. This update brought three major changes alongside a ton of balance updates. I have played about 12 hours of this season so far, and I have mixed thoughts about it.
The biggest new addition to the game is a new hero: Emma Frost from “X-Men.” She is of the vanguard/tank variety and, as of now, she is dominating the meta. She brought with her a new map as well, Krakoa, and this is where my qualms start.
This map has a few neat features, such as portals that occasionally open which have a chance to take the player to the objective. At first, I thought it was just a cool feature, but the more I played on the map, the more I realized that they are there because the map is just too big to walk around. This map feels so much larger than the other maps and it makes playing on this map miserable, especially for characters that do not have a movement ability.
Alongside that, nothing stands out from the battle pass this season. There are ten pages of skins and sprays with a few clumps of in-game currency sprinkled throughout, which are purely cosmetic and add nothing to the gameplay.
This update is not all bad though. The balance updates made to existing characters greatly improved the quality of the game. One of the balance changes that made this update worth it was the new team-up abilities.
Team-up abilities are special moves that unlock when a team has a certain combination of heroes. These abilities are usually way too overpowered and this update did nothing but perpetuate that in a good way. I think shooter games are much more fun when everyone is overpowered rather than underpowered.
Overall, this update brought more good than bad and I do not think that it will change much for the future.
