Marvel Rivals just hit an impressive milestone: 10 million players in three days.
NetEase’s free-to-play superhero team-based PvP shooter launched on December 6 across PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S. While Sony and Microsoft do not make PlayStation or Xbox player numbers public, Steam makes Valve stats available, and it’s there that Marvel Rivals is enjoying a particularly massive launch.
Marvel Rivals peaked over its launch weekend with 480,990 concurrent players, which was enough to put it in Steam’s top five most-played games. It’s the 20th highest concurrent player number ever seen on Steam, ahead of the likes of Helldivers 2, Grand Theft Auto 5, and Destiny 2.
On Steam, Marvel Rivals has a ‘mostly positive’ user review rating, with 76% of the 35,000 reviews tagged as positive. Check out IGN’s Marvel Rivals Review in Progress to find out what we think.
For NetEase, it will be hoping not only to keep Marvel Rivals’ player count as high as possible for as long as possible (something that’s proved particularly tricky for live service games of late), but to make enough money from players to meet the company’s internal revenue projections. To that end, Marvel Rivals sells a battle pass and premium skins, but are they convincing players to open their wallets? Early signs suggest they are — Marvel Rivals is the second top-selling game on Steam by revenue, behind only Grinding Gear Games’ action RPG Path of Exile 2.
Marvel Rivals launched alongside Season 0, dubbed Dooms’ Rise. This month-long kick-off season starts with a total of 33 heroes, all available to play for free, eight maps for Quick Match and Competitive modes, a Conquest map, and a Practice Range. Dooms’ Rise serves as the opening chapter “for the chaos caused by each of Doctor Dooms’ time experiments colliding and unleashing the Timestream Entanglement,” NetEase said.
There’s a Twitch Drops event for Season 0, as you’d expect from a live service game of this type, an ‘Entangled Moments’ seasonal event to unlock spray rewards, gallery card rewards, and stories for completing tasks, and a global launch gift: a special code for a free Iron Man costume.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
