Marvel Rivals, the new hero shooter based on Marvel comics characters, is about halfway through its first full season. The free-to-play game launched season 0 on Dec. 6 and quickly reached 20 million players before starting its first full season in early January.
The midseason update brings two new heroes, one new map and (thank Odin) does feature a rank reset as originally announced.
Read more: Marvel Rivals: How to Choose Which Heroes and Roles to Play
New Marvel Rivals heroes and maps
Season 1 brings the Fantastic Four — Invisible Woman, Mr. Fantastic, Human Torch and The Thing — to Marvel Rivals. They’re a fitting addition to the game, given its premise that two Doctor Dooms from different timelines are warring for control. (It also helps build hype for the new Fantastic Four movie, First Steps, coming this July.)
The start of the new season gave us Invisible Woman in the strategist role and Mr. Fantastic as a duelist. The midseason patch added The Thing as a vanguard and Johnny Storm as yet another duelist. The preview trailers for The Thing and Human Torch show off brief glimpses of their abilities, including The Thing’s clobbering punches and Human Torch’s free flight and ability to combo ultimates with Storm.
A new map, Central Park, was also added in the midseason patch, allowing players to take the fight to Dracula’s Castle. Earlier in season 1, we got one new convoy map, Midtown, where players escort the Fantastic Four’s robotic ally H.E.R.B.I.E. to Avengers tower. We also got an all-new arcade game mode, Doom Match, which takes place in Doctor Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum.
The devs said this is twice what they have planned for future seasons, so it’s probably safe to expect one new hero at the start of future seasons and another about six weeks later, with one or two new maps per season. That would mean eight new heroes per year, and four to eight new maps. That’s an impressive amount of content for a live-service game.
There have been many other Marvel Rivals leaks recently, including hero models or abilities for characters like Ultron, Emma Frost and Jean Grey. These all have yet to be confirmed and won’t show up in season 1, but they do suggest a healthy content roadmap for the game, essential for keeping players engaged over the year.
Battle pass
The season 1 pass features 10 new costumes, styled around the season’s Eternal Night theme. The battle pass costs 990 lattice (about $10 worth of in-game currency). You can earn 600 lattice and 600 units (collectively, about $12 worth of in-game currency) if you complete the battle pass.
Balance changes
The developers said they wanted the midseason to disrupt (but not totally shatter) triple-strategist compositions by reducing the frequency that powerful support ultimates are up while also accelerating how often some duelist and vanguard ultimates are available. Storm received a nerf to bring down her power level, while Doctor Strange and Magneto were also the target of nerfs after continuing to be the most successful vanguard heroes. You can see the full patch notes here.
The devs also responded to feedback that balance changes have been too slow, stating that they intend to keep major changes to patches that kick off new seasons and midseasons, but said they would make one tactical balance change after each to address any immediate outliers.
The Rivals site also updated pick and win rate stats from season 1 so far.
No midseason rank reset
Despite initially indicating that players would see a smaller reset to their ranks at the start of the season, the season 1.5 patch did not change players’ ranks. The initial announcement was unpopular with players, who felt that resets every six to seven weeks added a level of futility to the ranked climb. Going forward, ranks will be reset to six divisions at the start of a new season (approximately every 13 weeks).
Marvel Rivals season 1.5 start time
The second half of season started on Friday, Feb. 21.
For more on Marvel Rivals, check out my tips for getting started and my guide to choosing which heroes and roles to play.
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