“Do the Overwatch comparisons annoy you?”
That was our predominant query after sitting right down to play a couple of video games of Marvel Rivals, Netease’s new hero shooter that bears greater than a passing resemblance to Blizzard‘s genre-definer.
“No, we welcome them!,” smiles Thaddeus Sasser, the sport’s director. “Overwatch actually helped set up the style, I feel they’ve a terrific sport. It’s an honour to be in comparison with a terrific sport. For somebody to say, that is like this, nevertheless it’s additionally completely different and I prefer it.”
Marvel Rivals is a team-based hero shooter wherein gamers choose from a variety of Marvel favorites, all with completely different skills, in an effort to return out on high. If you happen to’re an Overwatch veteran, it’s going to doubtless be literal seconds till you discover a hero that performs like one in all your favourites from Blizzard’s sport.
However we expect it’s unfair to put in writing it off as a easy clone. Rival’s forged, which the crew was eager to level out is already the identical dimension as Overwatch’s launch forged, regardless of the sport being in beta with extra characters to return earlier than launch, is numerous and a whole lot of enjoyable to experiment with.
It runs the gamut of characters that your Gran most likely is aware of to some that even seasoned followers could should Google. Every time we died, we switched characters, which implies whereas we didn’t get to expertise the complete forged, we weren’t far off it.
The Punisher is a no-nonsense run-and-gun, Iron Man floats above the battle raining down bullets, and Spider-Man is up shut and private. The difficulty with placing characters like this all collectively in a single sport is the participant’s expectation of what they’re able to do.
In some other sport, Spider-Man ought to be capable to infinitely net his enemies and swing until his coronary heart is content material. That’s not fairly appropriate with balancing a hero shooter, however NetEase has completed effectively to string the needle of characters feeling like they need to, with out being totally damaged.
“How else can we make it ours?,” says Sasser, when requested about what Marvel Rivals can do to face out whereas nonetheless retaining what followers of the style anticipate.
“We introduced in epic destruction within the maps, you may destroy a lot of our maps and it genuinely impacts gameplay.” Whilst you can’t utterly bulldoze the map till it’s a chessboard, you may shoot the bottom beneath your ft to search out an escape route, or destroy a wall to create a brand new flanking alternative.
This does make for an attention-grabbing change, particularly as anybody who has spent years taking part in Overwatch can most likely draw many of the maps, and greatest spots on these maps, from reminiscence. This lends a way of unpredictability to each sport, and implies that gamers who love to take a seat in a nook and annoy individuals must watch their backs. Horrible information for us.
There are additionally team-up powers that see sure characters mix to kind lethal duos. For instance, Rocket can experience on Groot’s shoulders. Throughout this section, Groot retains motion management, and Rocket turns into a turret.
Not solely does which have apparent implications for crew composition, nevertheless it additionally implies that the cadence of matches are vastly various. For instance, in Overwatch, when you see an final getting used, you recognize you may have a sure period of time you can be aggressive in the direction of that participant earlier than they’re prepared for one more one.
However with the team-up mechanic, it’s more durable to foretell what’s going to occur on the battlefield, making for extra thrilling matches.
The sport is mechanically strong, the launch roster may be very robust, and it’s bringing some new concepts to the battlefield, however exterior of that, the primary concern for Marvel Rivals is: how shortly can the crew react when the participant base isn’t completely satisfied?
“Now we have an extended timeline out in entrance of us,” says Paul Ella, the sport’s head of manufacturing. “However we’re additionally listening carefully to what the gamers are saying. Our Discord channel is as much as 230,000 individuals. We’re listening to all that suggestions and planning accordingly, and we’re capable of pivot accordingly.
“If some issues aren’t working, we’re positive the neighborhood will inform us,” he laughs.
Marvel Rivals is vastly promising, and welcome competitors within the hero shooter area. It’ll most likely by no means shake the comparisons to Overwatch from outsiders, however now that we’ve performed it, it’s removed from Overwatch’s alter-ego. A robust preliminary forged, a cohesive, readable visible model, and a few distinctive mechanics make it far more than simply Overwatch with Iron Man.
