Season One of Marvel Rivals has officially begun, with players digging into Mister Fantastic and Invisible Woman, the most recent additions to the superhero roster. With the Human Torch and The Thing releasing in late February, many fans are wondering when we will see even more characters make their debut in the free-to-play shooter. As players may know, there have been many leaks regarding the next batch of characters to assemble into the Marvel title, with names such as Cyclops, Professor X, Jean Grey, and Blade swirling around the internet. The wait for these superheroes won’t be long, as Marvel Rivals director Guangyun Chen has addressed the game’s planned character release schedule.
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The excitement surrounding Marvel Rivals characters began with the debut trailer for the game, and continued until launch when the likes of Squirrel Girl, Iron Fist, Black Window, Cloak & Dagger, and Wolverine were revealed. Players got to witness the release of two characters simultaneously with the launch of Season One and will apparently get that chance again in February. While a massive amount of characters have already been announced, NetEase Games isn’t looking to stop the momentum.
Marvel Rivals Will Add a New Hero Every Half a Season
RELATED: Marvel Rivals Leak Reveals More Playable Characters Coming Soon
According to an interview with Metro UK, Che opened up about the plannyed three-month seasons and addressed the rollout of new content, including heroes. He revealed: “Every season we’ll be rolling out fresh seasonal stories, new maps, and new heroes. We’ll actually be breaking down each season into two halves. The length of one season is three months. And for each half of the season, we will introduce a new hero. We just eventually want to continue to enhance the experience, and keep everyone excited in our community.”
With confirmation that there will be two characters released in one season, this means that players will be introduced to a new character every 90 days in Marvel Rivals. From a macro-view, this also means that Marvel Rivals will release eight new characters every year, which is already more than Overwatch 2’s schedule of one new hero every other season. In terms of this year, given we’re getting four characters in one season, 2025 could see 10 superheroes added to the game. That in mind, the roster will jump to 43 characters by the end of the year.
NetEase has been open about their continuous work on Marvel Rivals, as they have taken all the feedback given by players and addressed it when necessary. Chen’s comment on keeping everyone in the community excited about the game reassures players that there will be no shortage of new content to dig into every month.
Chen also spoke about the seasonal updates with team-ups and new heroes, adding: “Looking ahead as we move on to seasonal updates, we’ll be introducing new heroes and will also be refreshing the team-ups every season. That includes adding new team-ups, as well as breaking down and reshaping the existing ones to keep the experience dynamic and engaging for everyone.”
The dedication of the Marvel Rivals team has been comforting to a lot of fans, as the support for the game hasn’t died down since its release. According to SteamDB, Marvel Rivals has more players jumping into the game than it did on release, with about 500,000 playing the new season.
