Whereas NetEase has beforehand spoken about desirous to strike a steadiness on the subject of growing Marvel Rivals for each informal gamers in addition to extra aggressive gamers that is perhaps excited about esports, Marvel Video games government producer Danny Koo has reiterated the thought.
Chatting with PCGamer at GDC 2025, Koo spoke about Marvel Rivals‘ builders prioritising enjoyable gameplay over wanting aggressive steadiness. Whereas the latter is perhaps widespread amongst a smaller subset of gamers, the enjoyable gameplay is the place Marvel Rivals will get its large viewers of informal gamers from.
“So each character we steadiness for enjoyable, before everything, as in if the character is enjoyable or not [to play], that’s all the time primary,” mentioned Koo. “After which the workforce has knowledge on win charges, ensuring that nobody character is simply too painful and oppressive so that everyone’s nonetheless having enjoyable. However that’s secondary.”
Koo went on to speak about wanting to verify gamers are having enjoyable by providing distinctive characters that each one handle to play in another way. He brings up Human Torch and Storm as two examples which have distinctive gameplay, however nonetheless handle to work collectively properly because of their talents mixing as much as create a bigger menace for opposing groups.
“[Players] need to really feel like they’re enjoying as distinctive a personality as attainable,” mentioned Koo. “And the workforce has pulled it off with each single character. I imply, the most recent content material with Human Torch and Storm, the flame and whirlwind mixture, turns into a firestorm. That in itself is visually spectacular. However then I believe the graphic workforce additionally must be sure that it doesn’t kill your whole graphic sources, particularly if you happen to’re within the eye of the storm.”
He additionally spoke about desirous to discover a steadiness between informal and aggressive play, and wanting each kinds of gameplay to co-exist. In response to Koo, most gamers are likely to not go for the extra aggressive fashion of gameplay, as a substitute preferring to have fast, informal matches by means of Fast Play slightly than leaping into Ranked modes.
“[Casual and competitive] co-exist, however the majority of the gamers won’t play aggressive anyway, that’s for positive,” Koo defined. “They only need to have enjoyable with buddies and go, ‘Hey, let’s queue and do a fast play.’ However aggressive can also be essential, proper? As a result of [players] additionally need an avenue to point out off their mastery.”
Koo spoke about ensuring {that a} workforce is balanced by pairing up extra informal gamers with high-skill aggressive ones. This permits each groups in any given Marvel Rivals match to have a fair probability at successful the sport whereas nonetheless experiencing the fashion of gameplay they like.
“We all the time have a look at it and steadiness it, if needed, every season to see how briskly gamers progress,” Koo mentioned. “And by way of matchmaking, we all the time pair you with folks with the identical stage and the identical price as you to make it a cushty expertise.”
Koo wrapped issues up by reiterating that there are nonetheless no plans so as to add a Position Queue mode to Marvel Rivals. “No function queue—that’s what makes this sport so distinctive,” he mentioned.
Marvel Rivals is a free-to-play aggressive shooter accessible on PC, PS5 and Xbox Sequence X/S. Take a look at our assessment for extra particulars.
