NetEase Reveals Marvel Rivals’ Roadmap In Leadup To Launch Next Month, & Introduces MCU Thor

NetEase has revealed what to expect from Marvel Rivals for the rest of the year, as well as for 2025.

Creative Director Guangguang appeared in the latest video update to address the fans directly.

Guangguang explained that Season 0, Doom’s Rise, revolves around Doctor Doom’s experiments creating the Timestream Entanglement, and leading to the formation of four Chronoverses. 2099 is a techno dystopia, the Present timeline where Evil Strikes, the Mosaic timeline which is made of unstable space-time, and the Collapsing timeline where the gods can die.

One can vaguely guess at what kinds of heroes can appear from each Chronoverse. For example, since we know Wakanda colonized outer space, Black Panther likely comes from 2099, and may be a great grandchild of T’Challa. Thor could be coming from the Collapsing timeline, and Peter Parker and Peni Parker could be split apart from the Present and Mosaic timelines. No hint for now if we’ll get deep cuts from the MCUS such as Werewolf by Night or Blastaar, but one can always hope.

Marvel has freely given each video game developer free reign on how to use their characters, and the likes of Insomniac, Traveler’s Tales, and Firaxis Games have surprised us in different ways. It’ll be very interesting to see what NetEase comes up with for fans.

Season 0 launches this December 6, 2024, and will only be around for one month. Guangguang promises to have 33 heroes at launch, 8 maps for quick match and competitive modes, 1 conquest map, and a new practice range. Guangguang also teases various heroes, including one who has an interesting team-up with Hulk. We’re not holding our breath on Ka-Zar or Spider-Woman, but maybe NetEase can surprise us yet.

Subsequent seasons will last three months, and will have fully priced battle passes. For Season 0, the battle pass will be cheaper, and have a smaller roadmap so it’s easier to get everything.

 Guangguang promises the game will not be pay-to-win, and they are ‘ever charging for power. Battle passes, at least for now, will offer costumes and customization, and they’ll also have a regularly update store for them.

In fact, in this presentation, they show off MCU Thor, as well as an Iron Man skin seemingly inspired by War Machine Mark II, and Peter Parker dressing up in his most iconic of looks, the Bombastic Bag-Man.

Marvel Rivals launches with English, Chinese, and Japanese language voice acting support, and subtitles for 16 languages. NetEase will also allow the players to customize servers so that they can find what best experience they can get with whoever is available everywhere else in the world.

With everything that’s been going on in the industry in the past few months, it’s easy to genuinely forget that Marvel Rivals is coming. (Or maybe Netease employees are unintentionally drawing attention away from it themselves?) With Microsoft Gaming finally trying to hit its stride with all their current and future releases, and a looming reshuffling of third parties, it’s new entrants in the global industry from Korea and China that have a great opportunity to make a name for themselves.

NetEase’s Marvel Rivals is absolutely positioned for success, while they continue to work with its closest rival, Overwatch 2, as Blizzard’s official partner in China. We don’t know what this game will face in the future, but it’ll definitely be worth checking it out at launch.

You can watch Guangguang address all Marvel Rivals fans below.