When it comes to hero shooters, I pick the character I think is the coolest. I don’t play Zenyatta in Overwatch because I want to be a healer, it’s because I love his design. Heading into Marvel Rivals, I was going to employ the same tactic. NetEase’s interpretations of Magneto and Venom caught my eye since the first time I saw them, so they quickly shot up to the top of my favorite picks. With the studio’s newest developer diary ahead of launch, however, my hero-picking strategy has changed. It turns out we’re going to be given hero pick and win rates, so choosing my main amongst my favorite designs just got a whole lot easier.
With the Marvel Rivals release date right around the corner, it’s the multiplayer game‘s moment of truth. NetEase Games has been crafting the Overwatch competitor for some time, and while it does have some of the most well-known fictional characters in history behind it, that won’t be enough for the hero shooter to stick around. That’s why Marvel Rivals is doing things differently, with all heroes unlocked and free on day one, destructible environments, and more.
These aren’t the only ideas Marvel Rivals has, either, as a brand new developer video reveals that the game will give us official statistics on hero pick and win rates, among other things.
“In response to the many requests for detailed hero data, we have heard you and we are preparing to reveal the exact game stats for our playable heroes on our official website at launch, providing a complete dossier for everyone,” Marvel Rivals lead combat designer Zhiyong Feng explains.
“We’re also gearing up to reveal important combat data, such as win rates and pick rates, but this will take some time. Rest assured, we’ll meticulously gather the combat data after launch and share these vital statistics at the right time.”
Pick rates should tell you exactly how often a specific hero is picked by all players and in what context, while win rates will detail how often that hero is on the winning team.
Feng also says the full Marvel Rivals launch will have even more maps, with season zero introducing four new maps across the first month. We’ll get two maps based on the intergalactic empire of Wakanda called Birnin T’Challa and Hall of Djalia, alongside the Hydra Charteris Base and the symbiotic map of Klyntar. Each of these maps will have dynamic elements that shift traversal and on-the-fly strategy-making opportunities, so no two games will be the same.
We also learned a lot more about NetEase’s ongoing anti-cheat measures that will come alongside the Marvel Rivals launch, with penalties already in place for some beta players. Feng adds that cheats were being used in an average of less than 1% of games, and explains that the team has made “significant progress” in its cheating detection methods.
Ahead of the hero shooter’s launch, we’ve got all the Marvel Rivals characters you need to know about, alongside when we can expect the Marvel Rivals Season 1 release date to drop as well.
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