Marvel Rivals

NetEase has been running seasons of this since the end of 2024, and it is still a game that adds a hero, a map and a wardrobe on a schedule. Season 10 is Gorr's season, and it is as good a moment as any to ask what Marvel Rivals asks of a new player.

What you are actually playing

Marvel Rivals is a team-based hero shooter from NetEase Games. Two teams of six pick from the Marvel cast, fight over an objective, and lean on Team-Up Abilities — extra effects that show up when a specific teammate is on your side of the fight.

It is free to download on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S and PC through Steam, Epic or NetEase's launcher. The game launched at the end of 2024, with the PS4 version following in September 2025.

Cross-play is supported, but account progression and competitive matchmaking are separate questions. Rank, battle data and leaderboards are tracked separately by device; check the selected mode before planning a competitive session across platforms.

The current season is Season 10, Butcher's Blasphemy, which added Gorr the God Butcher as a Duelist and pushed the story towards Yggsgard. He is the newest name on a 54-hero roster that the official page splits across Vanguards, Duelists and Strategists, with Deadpool filed under all three.

What the three roles actually ask of you

The roster has three roles: Vanguard, Duelist and Strategist. They give a team different ways to take space, deal damage and stay alive.

Vanguards such as Hulk, Magneto and Groot hold ground and help protect their teammates. Duelists such as the Punisher, Hela and Spider-Man concentrate on dealing damage. Strategists such as Mantis, Luna Snow and Jeff the Land Shark provide healing and other support. Choosing a role means choosing which part of a fight you want to handle.

Deadpool can take any of the three roles. That flexibility gives you another way to fill a gap, but you still need to choose which job to do in the match.

That is the honest cost of a role-based shooter. A team that all picks the same job has left part of the fight uncovered, and filling the gap is a real contribution even when it is not the one you wanted to make.

Team-ups need a partner, not a second main

Team-Up Abilities have base and enhanced effects, with the enhanced effects carrying their own teammate requirements. Read the combination attached to your hero: a familiar name on the team does not mean every bonus is active.

Rocket's Planet X Pals illustrates the difference. Its base effect turns Bombard Mode into thorny spore grenades that damage enemies and heal allies. The enhanced effect lets him ride on Groot's shoulders when Groot is on the team.

Combinations are not a fixed pair either. Hulk has one team-up with Captain America and another with Wolverine. Mantis has one with Star-Lord and another with Adam Warlock. Captain America is listed with Winter Soldier and with Thor. So the habit worth building is not learning two mains you will never pick together — you only ever control one hero. It is knowing which teammate makes your pick better, and picking for the team around you instead of the hero you felt like playing.

The map is part of the fight

Environmental destruction lets you blast open pathways and turn rubble into cover. Its extent varies by level, and some structures remain indestructible to preserve the shape of the battlefield. Learning what can break is part of learning a map.

Thebes is a Convoy map built around shifting dunes, the chambers of Ozymandias and the Temple of Khonshu. K'un-Lun: Shenloong Arena carries the tournament framing, while Alchemax Headquarters and Lower Manhattan trade corporate labs for open streets. Yggsgard and Klyntar bring the seasonal story into the architecture.

Quickplay, Competitive and Arcade provide different ways to approach a session, from the rank ladder to alternative rules and formats.

There is also a place to be off duty. Times Square holds up to a hundred players for dancing, watching videos and generally hanging around between matches, which is a strange thing to put in a competitive shooter and a genuinely nice one to have.

How a season actually works

Marvel Rivals delivers its content in seasons, and the pace is fast. Season 10 arrived with its own patch and a follow-up patch a week later, the half-step before it opened about five weeks earlier, and both came with a new serial, a costume pass and an event attached.

Whether that reads as content or churn depends on what you want from a game. Patching this often keeps things moving, and it also means the hero you learned in August can play differently by October. If you want one character and one setup for a year, this is the wrong home for it.

Competitive play has seasonal costume rewards, including Gorr's Gods' Graveyard costume for Season 10.0. Rank alone is not enough: match participation and the requirements for the relevant half-season also matter. Check the reward conditions before committing to the climb.

The official site also keeps a hero hot list that breaks pick and win rates down by platform, game mode, role and rank, which is a better use of your attention than arguing about tier lists with strangers.

What it costs you

Marvel Rivals and its heroes are free to play. You can choose a hero for the team without buying access to that character.

Paid cosmetics change appearances without granting stat bonuses. The store sells costume bundles, while achievements and events offer ways to earn costumes and currency through play.

Two currencies are worth knowing. Lattice is the premium one you buy. Units are earned free in limited quantities through the battle pass, achievements and events, and some event rewards can be bought with Units instead of Lattice.

The battle pass is the other big purchase, and its terms are friendlier than most: once you buy a luxury pass, rewards you do not finish stay claimable in later seasons. The pressure lives in the store instead, where bundles and reruns run on timers — Season 10's own shop list carries dated windows for its costumes and a limited-time rerun of an older pass.

A cosmetic-only model is the friendlier version of a free game, and what you actually pay is attention. There is a lot of storefront, a lot of limited-time noise, and a costume for everyone, which is either the best part of the Marvel fantasy or the reason you bounce off live-service games entirely.

The other price is patience with other people. The official conduct post tightens penalties for being inactive, throwing and leaving early, with matchmaking suspensions that lengthen as violations stack, and it gives Quick Match its own escalation tier instead of sharing one with Arcade. That is the right call for a game where one person walking out ruins five others' round, but it does mean this is a shooter you should start when you actually have time.

Should you play it

Yes, if you want a hero shooter where the team composition is the puzzle and the roster is deep enough that your pick always has a partner somewhere. The Team-Up system does something the genre usually hands to a loadout screen, and destructible ground gives a fight a second, messier version of itself to learn.

Skip it if you want a game you can master alone. Marvel Rivals is a six-person argument you are always half-losing, and the storefront and the weekly patch notes will not stop for you.