We see that characters are getting leaked aplenty for Marvel Rivals. It certainly looks like NetEase isn’t too worried about that. At least for now, it’s helping generate hype for the game, without ruining any surprises.
But today someone shared quite the surprise about a character – and her cosmetic – that we already know is coming.
So, as we had reported before, Psylocke was announced last September. The default Psylocke in the game is Sai, an alternate universe version of the character from the comic book Demon Days: X-Men.
However, more recently, NetEase revealed that they were adding Psylocke’s most famous purple leotard ninja costume, labelled as the Vengeance skin.
We do feel that we have to point out, since a lot of fans don’t realize it, that NetEase essentially set up the fans so that they would want to buy the skin, while making them think that this was NetEase doing what they wanted. NetEase could choose to make it possible to get this costume free, but from what we know of the game’s monetization, we doubt it.
In any case, some streamers have been showing off Psylocke’s Vengeance skin, and seemingly out of nowhere, streamer Alanya Alisha, AKA DeputyARUUU, made this revelation on Twitter:
“It’s funny because we were told we weren’t allowed to be public about modeling but since that cat is outta the bag — YES! That is my ASS.
They had to take my dimensions for Psylocke’s in game model & basically it was a whole process but I guess y’all figured it out haha”
At this point, if you hadn’t realized that game developers regularly use real life models for their characters, we have to assume you’re a casual Fortnite gamer. So, this isn’t 100 % a surprise, but it is interesting that NetEase found a girl who just so happens to be a pretty popular content creator as well.
ARUUU also shared some photos for those people who didn’t believe it, but we find ourselves asking more questions about the people who figured it out.
In any case, ARUUU isn’t quite the stoic that Psylocke is IRL, but that’s OK. Actors can always play against type if they’re good enough, and we doubt NetEase will find anyone complaining about her work.
Oh, but between this, and the Hallyu inspired Luna Snow costume that’s also been making the rounds, NetEase is clearly looking to carve into that niche that The First Descendant and Stellar Blade is in (and Overwatch 2 if we’re being honest.)
It’s once again one more thing to ensure that fans show up for Marvel Rivals’ launch. And while some gamers will discourse that earlier live service titles this year like Concord and XDefiant never stood a chance, we do wonder if NetEase saw what happened to those games, and realized they had to go on overdrive.
