Marvel Rivals opening weekend sees 10m players join in

Well shatter my Infinity Stones. Marvel Rivals’ supercharged start has now seen an astonishing 10 million players assemble over the game’s opening weekend.

A free-to-play six-on-six team shooter from Chinese giant NetEase, Marvel Rivals launched last Friday for PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store, on PlayStation 5 and on Xbox Series X/S.

As of midnight last night, NetEase announced that 10 million players had joined in across the game’s various platforms. Excelsior!

Marvel Rivals’ roster of current and upcoming characters includes Marvel Cinematic Universe stalwarts such as Iron Man, Hulk, Scarlet Witch, Black Widow, Wolverine and Groot, along with other fan favourites such as Iron Fist, Cloak and Dagger and, of course, Squirrel Girl. (Seriously, when is she getting her MCU debut?)

As for how it plays, well, Marvel Rivals has been compared to Blizzard’s hero shooter Overwatch.

Indeed, over the weekend, Blizzard’s former boss – the ever-chatty Mike Ybarra – suggested Marvel Rivals was as much of an Overwatch copycat as the widely-discussed Horizon Zero Dawn clone Light of Motiram.

Unfortunately, Ybarra also seemed to suggest Marvel Rivals had copied Overwatch’s character of Widowmaker for Black Widow. The character – played by Scarlett Johansson in the MCU – was created by Marvel legend Stan Lee in 1964.