If I had a nickel for each time a recently-released stay service third-person shooter gained a whole bunch of 1000’s of gamers at the beginning of the yr, I would have two nickels. Which is not loads, however it’s bizarre that it is occurred twice. Because the headline suggests, Marvel Rivals is doing very nicely for itself—garnering a whopping 644,269 gamers on Steam at its all-time excessive as of January 11.
That, as per SteamDB’s leaderboards, places it at a downright respectful quantity 14 on the time of writing, inserting it under different such videogame giants as Baldur’s Gate 3 (which had round 40.6% extra gamers at its peak) and above heavy hitters like Path of Exile 2, Valheim, and Helldivers 2.
That is greater than sufficient to be categorized as a phenomenon, contemplating Arrowhead’s flagship shooter pulled in 458,700 bug-shooting tremendous patriots at launch. And that is not taking into consideration its gamers on different platforms resembling PlayStation 5 and Xbox Collection X/S.
As to why? Properly, Season 1’s right here, for starters. And it is free, clearly—which is certain to account for lots of the ‘eh, screw it, let’s give it a shot’ crowd. Of which I’m one, to be honest. I would by no means have usually tried one thing like Marvel Rivals for a premium, however its zany overpowered nonsense has completely hooked me. Even our personal Fraser Brown, who was initially down on the sport, got here round on it in time for Christmas.
However there’s additionally the truth that NetEase has put collectively one thing that is simply downright stable and little bit of enjoyable, marrying that competence up with recognisable characters. Let’s face it, the star energy of Marvel is a big energy as much as any advertising efforts. Everybody needs to get a teamwipe as their favorite hero, and also you get to take pleasure in studying extra in regards to the comics, too—in different phrases, gamers are coming for Spider-Man, and staying for Jeff the Land Shark. Certain, the monetisation ain’t nice, however it’s additionally cosmetics solely, so you may simply kind of shut your eyes and ignore it.
Whether or not it retains the momentum of its opening net swing is one other factor fully. 2024 was not an amazing yr for stay service shooters, making Marvel Rivals a notable outlier amongst its newcomer brethren. X-Defiant, Harmony, and Suicide Squad all launched and flopped—I would even given up hope {that a} new child on the block might even make a dent.
Properly, I am consuming humble pie now. Each as a result of I used to be fallacious, and since I preserve getting my ass kicked after I dive into the backline as Spider-Man, together with everybody else. At the least its builders are staying humble, too, with its recreation director admitting that there is actually no primary formulation to success: “It is actually arduous to inform forward of time.” That makes me really feel higher about my faltering powers of prophecy, no less than.