Steam Concurrent Player numbers for the newly released Marvel Rivals show a large number of players on Steam alone, hitting over 440,000 in concurrent users. This is assumably reflective of a far higher number, given the game saw simoultanious release on PlayStation 5, and the Xbox Series as well with both platforms not making their player counts public.
The free-to-play hero shooter developed by NetEase saw a total player count on Steam of 444,286. The reviews for the game are far smaller, featuring about 7,870 reviews at the time of writing this but give the game a mostly positive review with 75% of them being positive.
Of course, posting big numbers for a game that is free-to-play has not been uncommon in the past, and this year has seen the death of many a live-service title, such as Ubisofts XDefiant. NetEase is hoping to not only keep these numbers up but also find a way to convert these players to paying customers of their content to meet internal revenue projections.
To this end, like most games, Skins and a battle pass are available for purchase through the game. Currently, the game sits third in the best sellers list only behind the Steamdeck and Path of Exile II. Since this list is sorted by revenue it does paint a positive picture for their ability to turn a profit. This being said, historically live-service games have an easier time selling content near the launch, so only time will see if they are able to maintain sales over time.
Marvel Rivals launched alongside its Season 0, which is dubbed Dooms’ Rise. This inaugural season will run for a month and features 33 heroes, all available to play, 8 maps for quickplay and competitive, a conquest map, and a practice range. NetEase has stated this season is meant to serve as an opening chapter to the game “for the chaos caused by each of Doctor Doom’s time experiments colliding and unleashing the Timestream Entanglement.” There is additionally a Twitch drops event as well, a common live-service element employed by developers.
Remember to follow us on Twitter and Facebook to keep up to date on everything we have going on!
