NetEase Games’ Marvel Rivals is one of the biggest games on the planet right now, with the Chinese publisher confirming that its free-to-play multiplayer game has passed 40 million players, while it remains one of the most-played games on all platforms. The game is about to get a midseason update, bringing in The Thing and Human Torch, the second half of the Fantastic Four that are being added this season.
I recently had the chance to check out a preview build of the next update for Marvel Rivals, going hands-on with the two remaining characters from Marvel’s first family and seeing how they play against the rest of the already-packed roster.
As a Duelist, Johnny Storm (aka the Human Torch) rains fire on the battlefield, and his kit is great for peppering foes from a distance, quickly speeding up to attack the backline before moving back to safety. The ability to chain together fire blasts on the ground makes him perfect for area denial, blocking off enemy Strategists and corralling Vanguards to their doom.
Meanwhile Ben Grimm (The Thing) is a frontline Vanguard, capable of trading blows toe-to-toe with The Hulk and Venom. A charging attack knocks opponents into the air, and I found myself able to juggle enemies over and over with some careful timing. Ben’s regular movement speed isn’t amazing, but he makes up for it by providing an implacable threat on the front line.
It’s an impressive double-feature addition for the back half of Marvel Rivals Season 1, and I can’t wait to see the type of team composition that’ll emerge as other players get to try out these two heroes. I’m already envisioning lineups with the entire Fantastic Four flanked by Spider-Man and Luna Snow, or the sheer horror of watching The Hulk, The Thing, and Thor all charge an enemy at once.
In other news, Marvel Rivals is one of the latest games to gain NVIDIA DLSS 4 support for the latest graphics cards, which may give the few people on the cutting edge of GPUs a performance advantage.
Even so, the timing for this update is evoking mixed feelings from me, as this also comes on the back of the news that the American team working on Marvel Rivals has been laid off from NetEase Games for as-yet unclear reasons.
Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad writes that although increasing geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and China may play a factor in this decision, the “full picture is more nuanced,” and that this move is more likely to be a part of NetEase slimming down its overseas business, preferring to consolidate development teams in China.
The top-level reasons may be complicated, but the end result is not, with another handful of talented workers out of a job after working on one of the most successful games of the last year; this layoff comes at a time when thousands of other workers are still struggling to find new roles in the gaming industry.
I’ve had a blast playing Marvel Rivals so far, and I’m looking forward to continuing to play with the Human Torch and The Thing when they arrive for everyone. But it’s once again too much to hope that because someone worked on a clearly successful game, that they then get to keep their jobs.
Increasingly, there’s a specter of layoffs lingering over every aspect of the gaming industry, and it’s going to keep growing unless everyone works to do something about it.
Marvel Rivals is currently free-to-play across Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, and PlayStation 5. The Human Torch and The Thing arrive as part of the Season 1.5 update on Feb. 21, 2025.
