Marvel Rivals devs work to fulfil fans' "fundamental dream" of playing as anyone by adding new heroes every month starting from Season 3

Marvel Rivals Clone Rumble
(Image credit: NetEase)

Marvel Rivals' roster is about to get much bigger, much faster.

Marvel Rivals is about to kickstart its second season by welcoming Emma Frost on April 11 and Ultron halfway through the season, but future seasonal updates are going to shrink slightly.

In a new developer vlog, director Guangyun Chen explained that "there remains the fundamental dream to integrate even more exciting Marvel heroes into Marvel Rivals," and the team is working hard to get it done. "After intensive internal discussions and thorough evaluations," Marvel Rivals' developers decided that new heroes will be dropping every single month and seasons will now have a two-month format, starting from Season Three.

Season 2 Hellfire Gala | Dev Vision Vol. 05 | Marvel Rivals - YouTube Season 2 Hellfire Gala | Dev Vision Vol. 05 | Marvel Rivals - YouTube
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The game was previously bringing in new playable character every six weeks - one at the start of a new season and one in the middle, but shorter seasons means we'll be getting fresh faces at a faster pace.

Leaks make it seem like at least some upcoming Marvel Rivals heroes are ready to go, with fan favorites like Rogue and Deadpool hiding in the game's files.

Should NetEase keep up the release cadence, Marvel Rivals' already huge 37-hero roster should balloon to around 46 playable characters by the end of the year. In fairness, the team definitely isn't running out of source material to adapt - if the MCU has proven anything, it's that you can turn almost any named character into a star - and Marvel Games' Danny Koo has even said there's no limit on how big the Marvel Rivals cast can get, scarily enough.

"There's no limit for the sky," he told us. "We just throw everything at it." The only question now is whether the team can balance the incoming flood of heroes, while making them all interesting enough to warrant a meta shakeup.

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Freelance contributor

Kaan freelances for various websites including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that's vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he'll soon forget.

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