Roughly a month after NetEase Games’ Marvel Rivals landed with a splash across PC and current-gen consoles everywhere, the game’s first season – titled ‘Eternal Night Falls’ – will introduce the Fantastic Four to the colorful hero and villain roster.
Marvel Rivals has been the success story that Marvel and Disney tried to capture with 2020’s ill-fated co-op action game Marvel’s Avengers. The two keys to it winning the hearts of millions of gamers worldwide? It embraced the ‘hero shooter’ genre, which desperately needed another sizable challenger, and offers a relaxed free-to-play model.
Before we get into all the Season 1 details ahead of the January 10 start date, check out the stylish intro trailer below:
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“The Fantastic Four are fighting Dracula?!” You bet they are. Even if the infamous vampire (who, yes, has been part of the Marvel universe for ages) isn’t joining the selection of heroes and villains just yet, Marvel Rivals’ seasons are expected to be based around original narratives taking elements from all over Marvel’s rich history across all forms of media.
The same can be said about character skins and other cosmetics, as the game has already received a good selection of special looks for the characters directly taken from their MCU counterparts.
First up, Reed Richards aka Mister Fantastic, and Sue Storm aka The Invisible Woman are entering the battlefield on January 10, according to a blog post on the Marvel Rivals website, and you can watch their respective ‘character reveal’ videos below:
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Mister Fantastic somehow seems to excel at both dealing tons of damage really fast and absorbing incoming attacks, while The Invisible Woman’s set of abilities makes her look like one of the most versatile support characters in the game. We’ll find out very soon if they’re overpowered or in dire need of generous buffs.
Season 1 will be introducing several New York-based maps as well, including Doctor Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum which is joining the rotation when the season begins later this week. More content will be unveiled as the season continues, with Johnny Storm aka The Human Torch, and Ben Grimm aka The Thing also arriving through a second content wave.
With Captain America: Brave New World, Thunderbolts, and The Fantastic Four: First Steps all lined up to release this year, Marvel has been trying to synchronize its creative efforts across different media including the latest Marvel video games.
Could all this also be pointing to Marvel Studios giving us the first proper look at its long-awaited Fantastic Four reboot in the coming weeks? It’s a possibility, especially if we consider that DC Studios’ Superman, also hitting in July, received its first trailer last month.
Marvel Rivals is free to download and play and is currently available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC (Windows).
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