Marvel Rivals opens big with 10 million players on launch weekend

The free-to-play Marvel Rivals launched on December 5, and 10 million players logged on across PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S in its first weekend.

NetEase revealed the “incredible milestone” on Twitter, and gave its “heartfelt thanks to each and every one of you [players].” Data from SteamDB reveals the shooter opened to over 444,000 concurrent players on Steam on December 6, and became the platform’s top-seller and second most-played game that same day.

Currently, Marvel Rivals’ peak is 480,990 Steam players. The game was announced earlier this year, and marks Marvel’s first major foray into the free-to-play space for PC and consoles. The PvP shooter is notably a competitor to the likes of Overwatch 2 and Valorant, and Marvel Games head James Ong previously called Rivals “one of our most ambitious game projects.”

Marvel Rivals clears its competitors

How does Marvel Rivals compare to other recent Marvel and hero shooter games? Let’s find out.

SteamDB shows it surpasses Overwatch 2’s peak of 75,608 players on Steam. Blizzard brought its hero shooter to the platform last year, and despite review-bombers, it opened as a bestseller.

However, both titles are beat out by EA’s Apex Legends‘ 624,473 player peak. The battle royale hit a new high last year when it launched a deathmatch mode.

Looking at fellow Marvel ilk, Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered comes behind Rivals at 66,436 players. Both games are well ahead of other recent single-player titles, Marvel’s Midnight Suns (15,500 players), Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales (13,539 players), and Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy (10,989 players).