I say "slightly" because Arrowhead hasn't actually altered the power of the GP-31 Ultimatum at all. The explosive-launching delete button was only just added to the game in Helldivers 2's Servants of Freedom Warbond last week, and the devs have made it clear that "it's not our intent to release Warbond items that need immediate balancing, and we understand that any changes we make can evoke strong feelings." However, with the single-shot Ultimatum able to gain "extra ammo from the previously-a-bug-but-now-a-feature Siege Ready armor passive," Arrowhead thought "this specific combination is too strong."

In the latest patch notes, Arrowhead's release manager Max Carlberg (AKA Release Captain Carlberg) explains: "We're huge fans of big booms booming big (to quote our fabulous design director) so we didn't want to make the weapon less satisfying to use – we still want it to bring democratic tears to your eyes every time you use it, like it does for us. However, we will be addressing how easy it is to access extra ammunition for it, ensuring it requires a bit more effort to use it to the full effect."

It's not just the Siege Ready passive that won't work on the Ultimatum anymore – the Hellpod Optimization Booster is now ineffective, too. So, it'll no longer be so easy to fire out loads of shots, but it does seem like a solid approach to a nerf that still allows the weapon to keep its "core identity as a powerhouse" while dealing with "mixed" feedback about its strength.

Elsewhere, the patch irons out some crashes and an issue "where the scope aim-center was misaligned with the projectile's fire trajectory," and rebalances the LAS-17 Double-Edge Sickle – another new Servants of Freedom addition. "The goal is to ensure it feels like a truly powerful weapon while properly balancing the self-damage mechanics to reflect its high-risk nature," Carlberg writes. "In the current live version, we felt it lacked both the punch and the level of risk we wanted and we didn't feel it really lived up to our intent."

Now, the Double-Edge Sickle's armor penetration only builds up to the medium level (AP3) once the weapon has surpassed 25% heat, and after you pass 50%, you'll deal 70 damage rather than 55. However, you'll also be more vulnerable yourself, at 20 damage per second rather than 10 between 51% and 90% heat. From 91% heat onwards, the damage to enemies is still 70, but you'll go all the way to armor penetration level four. That is, of course, if you're willing to stand the 50 damage per second to yourself, which remains unchanged (along with the fire status effect).

For fellow fans of big booms booming big, you'll be pleased to know that the new Portable Hellbomb stratagem remains unchanged – other than the fact that you'll no longer be able to accidentally arm it when entering the Fast Recon Vehicle (FRV).

To celebrate Helldivers 2's first birthday, GM Joel recalls his favorite community moments that are now "canon" and "part of Helldiver lore."

Yesterday, NetEase Games broke the news to Marvel Rivals players that come the second half of Season 1 on February 21, everyone's ranks would drop by four divisions. "For example, if you ended the first half of Season 1 at Diamond 1, you'll start the second half at Platinum 2," a dev diary explained at the time. This didn't go down well at all – ranking up takes sweet time, which isn't a luxury everyone has in spades. It's a lot of progress lost when you consider that Marvel Rivals ranks will be reduced by a further six divisions at the start of a new season, too.

Thankfully, it's taken less than 14 hours for significant changes to be announced. In yet another new dev diary, NetEase Games acknowledges the "wealth of feedback" it's received, noting that "a common concern was the pressure associated with having a rank reset every half-season, which has made participating in competitive mode less enjoyable."

While the season will still be sort of split in half – granting those at or above Gold, Grandmaster, and One Above All ranks certain rewards on February 21 – there'll no longer be a rank reset. "Players will retain their ranks and scores from the end of the first half," the post explains. "To earn new rewards, players simply need to complete 10 matches in Competitive mode and meet the relevant conditions by the end of the season. Rewards will include a new Gold rank costume and a variety of Crests of Honor, featuring distinct designs for Grandmaster, Celestial, Eternity, and One Above All."

Wrapping things up, NetEase Games says: "We strive to make Marvel Rivals the best game it can be, and the community is the driving force behind this mission!" You've really got to hand it to the devs for quickly responding to what fans actually want from their third-person shooter – it's no wonder that it continues to be so popular.

Be sure to check out our Marvel Rivals characters tier list to see who the strongest heroes in the game are right now.

No offense, The Thing and Human Torch – you Fantastic Four members look very strong and intimidating in your promotional images. Personally, I would hate to be a torch or boulder person, so good for you.

That said, these superheroes are getting overshadowed like it's a lunar eclipse by Marvel Rivals' mid-season rank reset, which will make players fall four divisions when it also launches on February 21.

"For example, if you ended the first half of Season 1 at Diamond I," says a Marvel Rivals dev diary, "you'll start the second half at Platinum II."

Players don't like the sound of that. Marvel Rivals already has a seasonal rank reset, which drops players down six divisions – two unsparing rank resets might make gameplay feel like a depressing chore. Developer NetEase's decision here, by the way, comes only months after League of Legends developer Riot announced walked back its infamously back-breaking rank resets for one, massive yearly reset.

"This has to be the dumbest decision I've ever read," says one popular reply to Marvel Rivals' announcement on Twitter.

"Why on God's green earth do we need a mid-season rank reset?" wonders another player on Steam.

On Reddit, Marvel Rivals players are ready to revolt, feeling crushed by the "truly devastating news," as one hugely upvoted thread says.

"I can promise you NOBODY wants to have their rank reset halfway through every season," the Reddit post continues. "People have JOBS. I don’t have the time to re-rank up every few weeks.

Out of everything great about this game, this WILL make me and my friends stop playing."

Marvel Rivals is killing it right now, but there's one more thing it needs to borrow from Overwatch to truly thrive.

"Over the course of the last year of the galactic war, we have, on numerous occasions, been positively surprised by the actions and choices the community have taken," Joel says in a new video embedded below. "Choices that are now canon. That are now part of Helldiver lore for all time."

The first episode in the series recalls The Defense of Mort, an in-game event that tasked the entire community to defend a planet for two whole days. But it makes the list because the Helldiver's eventual victory was only guaranteed in the last few minutes.

Joel remembers that during the start of the galactic war, while humanity were busy squashing bugs, the sly Automaton Legion got aggressive and moved toward Super Earth. For two weeks, the game was full of bot-based defend events. "The Helldivers were somewhat successful in preventing the Automatons from amassing too much, but the one moment where that tide properly turned was on the planet of Mort," the game master recalls. "That 48-hour defend event came down to the last three minutes."

What makes the defense of Mort so memorable for Joel was how the community banded together to turn what was "projected to be a defeat" into a win. You see, the mission was ending on a Tuesday, the same day when Valve usually takes Steam offline for some maintenance, which left all PC Helldivers MIA during a crucial turning point in the war. But across Reddit and Discord and every other social media site, divers saw the clock ticking and rallied together - and it was perhaps the first but definitely not the last time that so many players got behind a unified, self-organized campaign against the odds. Joel calls the feat "the most nail-bitingly close win we had seen up to that point."

Check out our guide to the best Helldivers 2 weapons.

It might not seem important at first glance, but those physiques are one of the most essential factors in any hero shooter, and Marvel Rivals' discipline in this area isn't just slipshod: it's getting worse with every update.

Clear and present danger

Like many multiplayer shooters and certainly most hero shooters, the battlefield of Marvel Rivals tends to be busy. Lunar boomerangs ricochet off tacky New Age jewellery while skull-pattern murderers sling pink smoke bombs, neon webbing spills over the arena, and we've barely started. Arrows are in flight, hulks are hulking out, and a burgundy soccer mom is floating above all of this and threatening to blow herself up if her demands are not met. In normal circumstances this situation should be mentally overwhelming, but it doesn't have to be. Not when characters have clear silhouettes.

This is a trick almost as old as multiplayer itself. Even more important than the colors a character wears, their outline is what your brain notices first, and comprehension immediately follows. Without that attempt to meet you halfway the game risks getting immediately frustrating, as you can't process what you're looking at fast enough to make an informed choice about how to murder it.

In some respects Marvel Rivals is good at the silhouette game. For example, Hulk, Venom and Thor are all large tanks, but still have very distinct shapes. Hulk has a small head, making him pointy at the top. Venom is hunched with little legs, making him into an upside-down triangle. Thor is basically a rectangle, with a fluttering cape to further draw the eye. All great, no notes.

But as you get further into the roster of Marvel Rivals characters, things start to get tricky. Winter Soldier and Punisher are both middling-sized men in dark clothes holding guns in front of them, and now it's getting harder to tell at a distance. Likewise, Wolverine and Black Panther have similar movements and builds that make their rough shapes indistinct, not helped by both of them moving in fast pounces that make them difficult to track with the eye. Still, Logan's ugly jacket being coloured like a tropical fish does help mark them apart.

But clarity takes a hit again once you reach the bulk of the women in Marvel Rivals. After all, the men come in all shapes and sizes, from the lithe and acrobatic Spider-Man to the regal bearing of Magneto. But if you told me that Scarlet Witch, Black Widow, Mantis, Magik, Psylocke and Luna Snow were all built off the same wireframe model, I'd absolutely believe you. And Dagger and the new Marvel Rivals Invisible Woman are the real offenders: both hourglass figures in white jumpsuits with long, blonde hair, slinging small, glassy projectiles that heal allies and hurt foes. Most would struggle to separate them in a police line-up, let alone in the frenetic chaos of a dozen demigods trying to kill each other.

The shape of Things to come

It's hard to argue that this isn't a failing of the visual design. These characters aren't meant to be blurring together through some camouflage mechanic, this isn't supposed to be part of the meta. It's just unclear visual language.

Oh, and it gets worse when you factor in all those paid skins. Remember how Wolverine's varsity jacket helped separate him from the rest of the cast? Well, there's also several paid alternatives that give him all sorts of hues, and now I can't trust anything. Meanwhile, Star-Lord's "Lion's Mane" outfit looks so different to his regular clothes that it makes it hard to tell if it's even Peter Quill underneath that glam rock wig, ruining both the color theming and the silhouette in a single strike. Oh, and both Iron Fist and Black Widow now have similar costumes that muddle the issue further, so now I can't tell the flying space rogue, martial arts master and sniper apart. If anybody out there had actually played Black Widow, it would be a catastrophe.

Overwatch wasn't completely perfect in this regard, but in its heyday it was pretty solid at keeping its cast visually distinct, even with the wildcard factor that is paid cosmetics. Cartoonish visuals always help here. Team Fortress 2 was even more skilled at this (especially in the pre-Hat era), which is doubly impressive considering that the reds and blues had to be… well, red and blue, a limitation that Valve's artists effortlessly worked around.

I'm not really sure how Marvel Rivals fixes this problem retroactively without a lot of refunds, but they can at least keep it in mind going forward. Embracing more body types, especially for the women in the cast, won't just be good for representation (though it would also be that), it's good for optical clarity. Staying creative with costumes and armor will also help, like with Magneto's unique hood ornament, and making sure that future skins don't blur their silhouettes will do a world of good. Use whatever colors you want, NetEase – but for fun's sake, please color within the lines.

Follow up your time in Marvel Rivals with more of the best superhero games

Introduced as part of the Helldivers 2 Servants of Freedom Warbond, the Ultimatum is a secondary weapon described as "a pistol front-loaded with a single, powerful explosive. The weight of the projectile limits the weapon's range." Simply calling it a "powerful explosive" might be understating things, though, as this is basically a mini-nuke along the lines of what you might see in a Fallout game.

The Ultimatum is indeed a bit hard to aim, as you've got to work hard to correct for its arcing flight path, but if you hit just about any target it's immediately done for. That even goes for notoriously sturdy objective targets like Detector Towers, Jammers, Science Labs, Fabricators, and more.

You only need a quick browse through the Helldivers 2 subreddit to see that the Ultimatum is the hot-button topic of the moment, though the war is admittedly a bit lopsided. There are a handful of players suggesting that its power to destroy objectives is a bit much for a secondary weapon, and many, many more preemptively trying to shut down any idea of a potential nerf while suggesting that the weapon is perfectly balanced as it is.

Balance is a tricky topic to unpack in any multiplayer game, so I guess we'll see what Arrowhead decides to do, but with a cooperative PVE-focused title like Helldivers 2 it's difficult to say anything beyond "mini-nuke go brrrrrrrrrrr."

Check out our guide to the best Helldivers 2 weapons.

"I just wanna give you folks a big props for the DSS maneuver you did," Shams Jorjani says in Helldivers' Discord. "Brilliant move. J.O.E.L. is out to get you now."

What earned ire from Joel, Helldivers' nefarious Game Master at Arrowhead? The fan account Helldivers_NOW explains players' winning DSS strategy in a post on Twitter.

"In the past, the Helldivers community had struggled in fully controlling the Democracy Space Station (DSS) in terms of strategy and its usefulness," Helldivers_NOW says.

But, "as of recent and in a surprise, the Helldivers were able to completely use the DSS to its full potential" by coordinating an assault on Lesath with offensively sending the DSS to Menkent and halting a Jet Brigade in its tracks, as per a Major Order.

As per Joel's Major Order. Let's remember that J.O.E.L. is the Terminator of third-person shooter co-op, and doesn't like to be bested. That's why he, or it, often pushes even the most idealistic Helldivers soldiers to commit unspeakable acts in the name of his neverending war.

Like in November, when Helldivers introduced the so-called "weapon of mass liberation" DSS, Joel directed Helldivers to exploit "disenfranchised families" as "cheap labor" to finish its construction. Does his cruelty know no bounds?

Now, he's definitely quaking in his evil boots about the fact that Helldivers 2 grunts are using his superweapon to their own advantage. Deal with it, J.O.E.L.

Helldivers 2 is getting a portable hellbomb that looks just as chaotic and deadly as Fallout's mini nukes.

The Servants of Freedom Warbond isn't here to mess about, it's here to deliver freedom no matter the cost – and the cost will most likely be your life as the new portable Hellbomb looks deadly.

The B-100 Portable Hellbomb is a new backpack stratagem that equips you with a mini Hellbomb that you can shrug off your shoulders and detonate right in the middle of a horde of enemies.

It only has a 10-second fuse, and it can't be turned off once activated, so you'll need to drop it and run like the wind if you don't want to get obliterated yourself. I still need to save up some Super Credits so I won't be using it any time soon, but I can't wait. I wonder if it'll explode if a comrade falls and you shoot it off their back?

The collateral damage doesn't stop there, however. There's a new version of the Sickle that does extra damage to enemies but will also burn you in return. "Shoot through the pain, Helldiver," a PlayStation blog post reads.

There's a new secondary, too, the GP-20 Ultimatum, a grenade launcher that packs a serious punch. I thought it was the mini Hellbomb at first, but as strong as it is, it looks like a balloon popping next to the majesty that is the mini Hellbomb.

There's also a drone grenade, the G-50 Seeker that sends an explosive with propellers on it so you can even get those pesky Shriekers while they're flying.

All in all, it looks like a solid Warbond. It just might be the next one I get. If you need to farm Super Credits, I'd advise you do it on difficulty two, as there's no chance of rare samples taking up space in the loot pool, so you'll often find more super credits.

As well as the new Warbond, there's a new patch that has buffed minefields, brought back the ability to emote while falling, and made the FRV more reliable.

In the meantime, check out some of the other best online games you can play with your friends or solo.

All rewards in the Servants of Freedom Warbond in Helldivers 2

Below we've listed all the rewards that you can get in the Servants of Freedom Warbond in HD2, as well as their prices in Medals

• Page 1
  • Weapons
    • Las-17 Double-Edge Sickle (Primary Weapon): A version of the Sickle with an extended magazine that also deals damage to the user and those nearby when it overheats. (35 Medals)
  • Armor
    • IE-3 Martyr Armor (Medium armor): Causes the player to explode on death, dealing damage to all around them. (45 Medals)
    • IE-3 Martyr (Helmet): Standard helmet stats. (30 Medals)
  • Cosmetics
    • Fre Liberam (Cape): Gray cape with an eagle/sword insignia. (8 Medals)
    • Fre Liberam (Player card): Gray player card with an eagle/sword insignia. (2 Medals)
  • 100 Super Credits: (7 Medals)
• Page 2 (Spend 95 Medals to unlock)
  • Weapons
    • GP-31 Ultimatum (Secondary Weapon): A very short-range launcher that creates a massive explosion on contact. (40 Medals)
  • Armor
    • IE-12 Righteous Armor Set (Medium armor): Causes the player to explode on death, dealing damage to all around them (yes, it has identical stats and abilities to the Martyr). (55 Medals)
    • IE-12 Righteous (Helmet): Standard helmet stats. (45 Medals)
  • Cosmetics
    • Per Democrasum (Cape): Black cape with yellow and gold highlights. (25 Medals)
    • Per Democrasum (Player card): Black player card with yellow and gold highlights. (7 Medals)
  • 100 Super Credits: (12 Medals)
• Page 3 (Spend 230 Medals to unlock)
  • Weapons
    • G-50 Seeker (Throwable): A thrown device that turns into a small drone that follows the player around. It then flies at nearby enemies and explodes, prioritizing targets that the player pings. (65 Medals)
  • Stratagems
    • Portable Hellbomb: A backpack Hellbomb that players can carry and deploy at a moment of their choosing. 10 second fuse. (110 Medals)
  • Cosmetics
    • Raise Weapon (Emote): Lift your weapon in triumph. (25 Medals)
    • Servant of Freedom (Player Title): (25 Medals)
  • 100 Super Credits: (32 Medals)

The focus on equipment and weapons that hurt the user or put them at risk feels pretty typical of Helldivers 2, as well as being suitable for the first anniversary of the game's release.

How to get the Servants of Freedom Warbond

The Servants of Freedom Warbond is live right now and costs 1000 Super Credits, same as the previous warbonds throughout the game. If you need to know how to get Helldivers 2 Super Credits in game, our guide will show you the quickest way to farm them for yourself.

Still catching up on details from the previous update? Find out how to master the Helldivers 2 fast recon vehicle here, or check out everything you need to know about those damn Squids - aka, the Helldivers 2 Illuminate faction!

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission

First off, a fan-favorite strategy is coming back. We used to be able to emote while falling to somehow prevent all fall damage, which looked hilarious and was also incredibly helpful at times. The ability to emote while falling was taken away back in October, but now it's back. The caveat is it won't reduce the damage you take, but at least you'll look cool while falling to your death. As the patch notes explain: "You'll be able to freely express yourself as you fall to your imminent death or severe injuries - Nothing a stim can't fix!"

The changes I'm most excited about are the minefield buffs. All three mine types have had their cooldowns reduced from 180 seconds to 120 seconds, which is a huge buff. The anti-personnel and incendiary mines have also both had their damage increased substantially. Better watch where you step, teammates.

A great quality of life fix is that "The Ministry of Humanity has added a clause to its Principles of Correct Posture for Safe Lifting," so we can now jog while carrying SEAF artillery shells and barrels. No more rapidly dropping them and picking them back up to move quickly.

There are also several FRV changes. You can now throw grenades and stratagems while you're leaning out from the passenger seats, and its health and handling have been improved, too. A bug fix has also been implemented that means if you ragdoll into an FRV it will no longer be "yeeted into space," and hitting civilian cars with melee weapons shouldn't send them flying anymore.

One bug fix that I'm a bit sad about is that we'll no longer slide around on the floor after a blast or being knocked into shallow water, "despite it being the year of the snake." That bug saved my life on many a bot mission, so I'll miss it greatly.

Meanwhile, another bug that absolutely broke some missions for me has also been patched out. Civilians should be able to find the shuttle door properly during Emergency Evacuations now.

Gas weapons have also seen several improvements made to their targeting and the gas effect duration. The guard dog should now move onto a new enemy once one has been gassed, and its range has been increased - it's one of the best stratagems to use right now.

Illuminate maps should become less crowded, too, as dropship wreckages will despawn after a set time to stop them obstructing paths. I found it fun, honestly, but I can see how it would frustrate a lot of you, so I understand why it's been patched.

Last but not least, the devs "fixed a small visual bug with the Stalker's tongue (you don't want to know what it took to fix it)." Well, now I really do want to know.

You can read the full patch notes right here for the full details.

Once you've spread some managed democracy, check out some of the other best online games you can play right now.

This kind of gradual improvement is something that all of the industry should be doing. How often have we seen games like FIFA (or, as it’s now known, EA Sports FC) or Madden release a yearly installment that throws the baby out with the gameswater? Instead of doing this, Sniper Elite tends to build up to greater and greater levels with each release. Presumably, they will eventually end up with the Platonic ideal of a video game, a towering monolith that is the ne plus ultra of following bullets into Nazi testicles.

To make it easier to follow this trajectory (of the games, not testicular trauma), let’s break it down and look at each game and what was added.

Sniper Elite V2

It would be seven long years until Sniper Elite V2 followed its predecessor onto our hard drives back in 2012. In many ways, this was more of a reboot than a true sequel, taking place in the same location and timeframe as the original: Berlin, 1945. It brought with it a much-improved killcam that would not only follow the bullet into your unlucky long-distance target, but then give you an X-Ray of the bullet’s impact as you splattered them across some battered Berlin brickwork.

The game itself was, like the original, a good game but nothing too stellar, with the X-ray killcam doing a lot of the heavy lifting in keeping the game compelling. It also started the now series-long tradition of having a DLC mission that allows you to take out one of history’s biggest monsters, Adolf Hitler.

Sniper Elite 3

The third instalment changed the setting from the smoking ruins of Berlin after a visit from Aunt Katyusha to North Africa in 1942. As well as changing the setting, Sniper Elite 3 reworked the stealth system, making it easier to escape detection. The killcam got updated, too, showing multi kills in more grisly glory, as well as adding improved vehicle explosion X-rays. Another neat feature was the flint and steel, a new gadget (an ironic way to describe tech that has its roots in man’s first forays into fire) that could be used to start fires or set a timer when detonating explosives.

While not as big a jump as Sniper Elite V2 was from Sniper Elite, Sniper Elite 3 is still worth a play today.

Sniper Elite 4

Shifting the setting once again, this time to Italy, Sniper Elite 4 was a big improvement in terms of movement and general versatility. This time around, you could shimmy and climb around to keep out of sight of your enemies, and you could even do the Assassin’s Creed favorite: a grab takedown from a ledge beneath your unsuspecting blackshirt target.

Melee kills could now activate a killcam, making stealth more interesting, while the game took a small step towards additional realism by letting you zero your scope. The maps also got quite significantly more detailed in this installment, making it the first really noticeably larger game in the series.

Sniper Elite 5

The real golden child of the series, Sniper Elite 5 was a huge improvement that made it easier than ever to be the ultimate stealthy bastard. The maps, set in France, are alive with opportunities for stealth, with a small circle showcasing how close enemies can get before detecting you, a clear influence from the Hitman series. In addition to this, there are kill challenges for certain enemies, tasking you with taking them out in a very specific way, for example, by using poison or burying someone in concrete.

I’ve mentioned how the maps are more detailed, but the maps are stupendously large, too. Which is good, because it enhances perhaps the most significant new feature: Invasion Mode. This mode allowed players to, in Dark Souls fashion, invade another player’s game as an enemy sniper, whose sole task was to eliminate the main character, Karl Fairburne.

Sniper Elite: Resistance

It’s another round of incremental improvements in Sniper Elite: Resistance, with the latest game in the series featuring the best features from Sniper Elite 5 and a new type of mission, propaganda missions. These are effectively small time trial missions that test your stealth, sniping and general combat skills to their limits.

It’s an interesting addition to the game, and while Resistance can sometimes feel a little more like an expansion to Sniper Elite 5 than a full installment, it’s still great fun, as you can see in our Sniper Elite: Resistance review.

So, what next for the Sniper Elite series? Who knows – maybe with the next game we’ll get a break from the World War 2 setting, or an entirely new type of main mission? One thing’s for sure: the series is going from strength to strength thanks to its philosophy of gradual improvements, and it’s something that the rest of the industry should take note of and learn from.

If your trigger finger's itchy for more, here are the best FPS games you should check out next

I didn't know that Bruce Banner functioned a bit like D.Va in Overwatch 2, I assumed he was always in Hulk form because I haven't actually played Marvel Rivals yet. Turns out, he has to transform, and some people are trying to make the game harder for themselves and their team by playing matches purely as Bruce.

I applaud people for finding new ways to have fun in live-service games that can often feel repetitive and grindy when you play them for too long - one person, for example, managed to get all the way to Grandmaster as Rocket without dealing any damage. That being said, I can't imagine any of you would want to be on a team with a calm Bruce Banner.

Over on Reddit, people aren't happy. "Just lost a game because a guy was playing Bruce only, not Hulk," writes a player. "Why would someone only play Bruce and not transform into Hulk omg? This was in a Diamond Ranked Game! His name was 'A Bruce Main.'"

It turns out, even when people do transform into Hulk, they don't always do it optimally. "In ranked recently had a Hulk main who wouldn’t Hulk out until he started to take damage as Banner," another player writes. "So infuriating because while he was Hulking out the enemy team would shoot the healers instead and by the time he was hulked out we were all dead."

Other players complained that a lot of people don't utilize Hulk's jump or his ability to cling to walls, meaning he's slow and lumbering instead of a nimble damage dealer.

It's cool that people are finding new ways to play Marvel Rivals, but maybe only do stuff like this when you're playing with your friends. Otherwise, you'll make a lot of people angry.

If you want a break from Marvel Rivals, check out some of the best online games you can play instead.

After one player argued that Warhammer series stewards Games Workshop would be "extremely unlikely" to agree to a crossover, Jorjani jumped onto the shooter's Discord channel to debunk the undemocratic theory. "I can tell you GW would love a crossover -and we're huge 40k fans ourselves," he wrote, hinting that talks of some kind between the two parties have taken place. 

So, what's stopping Warhammer's fascists space marines from linking up with High Command's fascist divers?" "Time and resources are finite and we've got our hands busy," Jorjani continued. "It would be cool as hell but I really don't know." The door is certainly open for a collaboration, then, even if nothing's been set in stone. 

Last year's Warhammer 40k: Space Marine 2 was itself cut from the same cloth as Helldivers 2, making a potential crossover more natural than most. Both featured high-tech space warriors massacring endless droves of bugs in some of the best co-op shooters in years, though there's an obvious power imbalance between the super soldier marines and the somewhat disposable divers.

As busy as the team are right now, Shams Jorjani also recently said the studio wants to keep supporting the game for the next decade or for "as long as people play [and] pay." Helldivers 2 has barely waivered in popularity over the last year, so there's plenty of time left for a Warhammer collab to come to fruition. 

Need something to tide you over until then? Here are the biggest new games for 2025 and beyond.

Now, in Ultimate X-Men #11, writer/artist Peach Momoko has dropped a reference that ties in directly to the video game incarnation of one of the most popular Duelist heroes in Marvel Rivals - and it's one that's also aimed at long time fans of Peach Momoko.

Spoilers ahead for Ultimate X-Men #11

Ultimate X-Men #12 by writer/artist Peach Momoko, script adaptor Zack Davisson, and letterer Travis Lanham deepens the mystery of the Children of the Atom and the newly formed X-Men's mission to free the mutants that have become victims of its cult. It also gives us the first confrontation between Kanon, the Ultimate Psylocke, and Hisako/Armor, co-founder of the X-Men.

In the midst of their brief fight, Kanon reveals that she is not just a mutant, she's the direct descendant of Sai, the psionic samurai hero of Peach Momoko's Demon Days saga who is adapted from the mainstream Marvel Universe hero Psylocke - who also just so happens to be the version of Psylocke that is in Marvel Rivals, potentially coming straight off the page to the game.

Though many of the default heroes of Marvel Rivals have flavor text and visual styling that is unique to Marvel Rivals, Sai is taken directly from writer/artist Peach Momoko's Demon Days comic, which recasts characters from the Marvel Universe into a world influenced by Japanese mythology. The connection is so direct that it's not only cited in Psylocke's in-game bio, the default Psylocke skin is taken almost whole cloth from Peach Momoko's art and design.

While most Marvel Rivals heroes have some alt-skins that tie directly into a specific era or comic, Psylocke/Sai is one of the few whose default presentation in the game is tied to a specific comic.

This has led to speculation from fans about whether the Marvel Rivals version of Psylocke is meant to be the exact same incarnation of Sai that appears in the comic - meaning not a game-specific interpretation of Sai, but the actual character, straight off the page.

While Peach Momoko's Easter egg adds some fuel to that speculation, it also raises some interesting questions about the possible comic book connections between Demon Days and Ultimate X-Men, and whether the timeline of Demon Days is merely mythology in the current Ultimate Universe as Armor suggests, or if it's actually possibly the same timeline, given Kanon says she's a direct descendent of Sai, and displays similar psionic abilities.

Whatever the case, Ultimate X-Men #11 is a treat for fans not just of Peach Momoko's ongoing Marvel canon, but also Marvel Rivals fans looking for direct connections to comics. And it does the best thing a comic can do, which is raise interest in finding out what's going to happen next in February 26's Ultimate X-Men #12.

Stay on top of all the new X-Men comics Marvel has planned for release in 2025 and beyond.

"So let me give you a bit of insight into how game dev works," Arrowhead CEO Shams Jorjani wrote in the game's Discord channel. "The lead for the game is Mikael Eriksson and has been for the last few years - Johan's role as a senior creative is to support all our projects. So he'll absolutely still be involved - in the same way he's been the past year - gives input on high level plans, collaborates with designers on some stuff."

Gaming discourse has somewhat aped film discourse in recent years as praise (and sometimes criticism) for certain games is heaped onto one particular person, whether that's Hideo Kojima or Ken Levine or Neil Druckmann, despite the fact that these men are clearly leading very expensive games made by hundreds, sometimes thousands, of other talented developers. It's auteur theory. And it's a way of thinking that Jorjani also pushes back on.

"The vast majority of Helldivers is a team effort - it's not one Jesus figure," he explains. "Johan's super power is developing concepts and games from the ground up. He was instrumental in getting Helldivers to where it needed to be - others carried it across the finish line." So, in other words, Pilestedt's evolving role won't derail whatever you like about Helldivers 2 as it is now.

Less than a year after releasing 2024’s best live service, Helldivers 2 director is already working on the “next Arrowhead game.” 

NoDamageRocket achieved the mind-blowing feat of reaching Grandmaster rank in solo queue all while being a pacifist in the chaotic hero shooter. That means they were focused on healing and support the entire time. No bullets were fired. No damage dealt. No kills. No self-defense, even. Until their recent blemish, that is.

In an attempt to simply delete the accidental 22-damage inflicted on a Cloak & Dagger, NoDamageRocket actually emailed developer NetEase. "I accidentally did an oopsie while playing competitive and hurt someone," their email, posted to social media, reads. "Not to worry though, Rocket apologized to them and has taken actions to improve himself! Could you please take that silly little 22 damage number off of Rocket's stat?"

In a follow-up tweet, the player who's since reached Celestial rank wrote that "Rocket got an answer back, it's a no," which is fine because "that's to be expected, Rocket did it as a joke anyways" and "will carry on the 22 dmg as a reminder for dashing too close to the sun!" A good way to take it on the chin and preserve their pacifist street cred anyway.

Elsewhere in the game, the Marvel Rivals team threatened keyboard and mouse adapter users with permanent bans: "On PC or console, we will take measures to vanquish this nefarious behavior."

For now, check out all the upcoming Marvel Rivals characters, heroes and villains.

Speaking in the official Helldivers 2 Discord server, studio lead Shams Jorjani reveals as much when a fan asks when support for the game might come to an end. "As long as people play," writes the CEO, "pay, and we can build a business case around it, we'll support it to hell and back." It's reassuring news, to say the least, and it sounds like there could even be more Helldivers 2 to come for a decade or longer.

After all, as Jorjani himself puts it, "If we can keep it going for 10 years we will." I'd argue Arrowhead just might – especially considering the game's success as one of PlayStation's all-time bestsellers and its ongoing domination of player charts. Just look at its Steam stats, where Helldivers 2 sits cozy amid the other top 100 most-played games on PC still nearly a year now after its monumental 2024 launch.

Helldivers 2 also boasts plenty of awards. After taking home two trophies at The Game Awards 2024 and boasting three other wins during the Golden Joysticks earlier last year, too, it's safe to say the shooter has thus far proven its popularity – and then some. 

As for creative director Johan Pilestedt's sabbatical, Jorjani doesn't seem to share concerns that it might affect Helldivers 2's development in any capacity.

"The lead for the game is Mikael Eriksson and has been for the last few years," explains the head. "Johan's role as a senior creative is to support all our projects. So he'll absolutely still be involved – in the same way he's been the past year – gives input on high-level plans and collaborates with designers on some stuff." As Jorjani states, "The vast majority of Helldivers is a team effort – it's not one Jesus figure."

He concludes that "Johan's superpower is developing concepts and games from the ground up." While Pilestedt "was instrumental in getting Helldivers to where it needed to be," there were "others" who ultimately "carried it across the finish line." There's no real way to tell what the future has in store for Arrowhead's game, however, but I'd wager 10 years doesn't sound too far out of the ballpark.

Need even more to look forward to now? Here are the biggest new games for 2025 and beyond.

"I know a lot of examples of people like that. They lost everything. It's like, 'no, I'm not going back,'" says Cortes. He hopes Exoborne's single-player-inspired elements will push players to jump back in and see more. "We thought there was an opportunity to bring more of the masses to this. That's why we have an art direction that is a little more inviting and triple-A. We have a narrative that usually doesn't happen much in these types of games to get people that are into narrative into these games."

Reborn vs Rebirth

Exoborne is development studio Sharkmob's sophomore title following its battle royale based in White Wolf's World of Darkness tabletop RPG universe, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodhunt ("Crackdown by of battle royale and Blade"), but some of the team has worked together before. The founders and others in the studio were part of Ubisoft's Massive Entertainment. That studio, of course, is known as the developers of Tom Clancy's The Division, which contained my first exposure to extraction gameplay in its Dark Zones. Since then, other games like Escape from Tarkov, Dark and Darker, and the upcoming reinvention of Marathon have adopted the high-risk/high-reward nature of Dark Zones and run with it. But Sharkmob has a more approachable vision for extraction.

Our demo begins by briefly introducing us to our characters, the Reborn, and their plight against an oppressive corporation called Rebirth, which has doomed humanity. The evil entity has reappeared in Colton County, a fictional region in the American Southeast, which, along with much of the world, is no longer viable to safely live in. Following Rebirth's attempt to subjugate humanity, the company shuts down its towers designed to calm the extreme weather calamities that have wreaked havoc on the land, allowing the climate to spiral again.

"We don't want it to be a sci-fi game, but there are sci-fi elements," Cortes states after I ask about the high-tech nature of the post-apocalyptic world Sharkmob has created. But it's one that's taken inspiration from the real world obfuscation of battlefields and depersonalization of casualties. It makes Rebirth's return particularly ominous. "It's like there is an enemy presence, but you're only meeting autonomous things. They are not even people and that makes it a little bit scarier."

To better sell the devastation that's befallen Exoborne's collapsed America, extensive research was done. Rodrigo traveled to states like Georgia to nail the intangibles of the region, and expressed the importance that the ruined areas of Exoborne feel familiar. He wants to capture the warmth of the Eastern United States and to showcase the humanity he found while visiting. For Cortes, the ruined world needs to feel real: "When you want to destroy something, you need to know what the normal stuff looks like to appreciate the destruction."

The weather disasters that caused all of the destruction are a massive deal. Not only are they central to the story, but the weather constantly and consistently affects how you play. The most splashy weather event is the appearance of tornados, which touch down around the map and let you soar into the skies with your glider. Standard tornados may sweep you up and fling you or, if you time things right, give your glider a much-needed boost to cover more ground. However, they can inherit other maladies like fire or poison, transforming them into a twisting fury of the absorbed element, ruining a run if you're not paying attention. Thick fog will limit how far you can see, rain will impair your gliding, and lightning storms will strike you down if you aren't careful.

Against the elements

To help players survive the dire elements and Rebirth lackeys, not only are they equipped with weapons, and an ever-handy pair of grappling gun and glider, but their characters equip Exo-Rigs, mechanical skeletons that grant special abilities. Rigs all share basic abilities like eliminating fall damage and enhancing stamina to dash for longer periods of time, but different models of Exo-Rigs act like equipping a different class.

Each Exo-Rig design you craft between matches allows for styles of play that genuinely feel different. The Kestral rig emphasizes mobility, allowing players to hover while pressing crouch in the air. A more aggressive player might want to use the sleek Viper model, which has a quick dashing knife strike and rewards downing enemies with health regen. My favorite was the bulky and boxy Kodiak Exo-Rig, that, while feeling slightly sluggish, reduces incoming damage while sprinting and allows for a cool descending ground pound if you find yourself above the enemy. Smartly, each rig has a visual design that's easy to pick out at a distance to know what kind of fight you're in for when a skirmish with other players inevitably breaks out.

The three maps we're let loose in are littered with areas to explore, from rundown shacks and small gatherings of houses to farms filled with enemies, all the way to enemy compounds filled with soldiers and robots. The introductory map is called Maynard, filled with farmlands, swamps, and mostly easy enemies. Here we cut our teeth, trying out the various Exo-Rigs, gathering supplies, and completing the initial quest objectives. To get into higher-difficulty maps – like the snowy Agnesvlle, or the hellish, aptly-named Sinkhole – the combined gear value you bring in has to reach a certain level, which is a fair way the game makes sure you've collected enough high-end equipment to take on the challenge that lies ahead.

After a few rounds, I hit my stride, and I find Exoborne can be downright exhilarating. The gunplay is tight, and I never really feel out of control or like I'm missing shots I should have been landing. Likewise, the mobility options on hand make moving around the map fun and offers improvisation and flexibility in getting around that I wouldn't expect in a game like this. Using the grappling hook, I launch off the nearest elevated point I can find, be that a building, windmill, tree, or electrical tendril emanating from a nearby weather-controlling tower. Once in the air, if the wind has kicked up, I tap the jump button, deploy the glider, and soar hundreds of feet to a new location and scout my surroundings from the sky. It reminds me a bit of getting around in Just Cause. In a good way, of course. It doesn't take much to travel far if the conditions are right, and it generally feels great to get from point A to point B, even if there are a few harrowing moments in between.

Hooked in

Throughout the world, my team runs into all kinds of trouble. Sometimes we strive to take home an artifact, which rewards everyone on the team with multiple items if successfully smuggled out and unlocked. Other times we throw ourselves at a relentless sentient Scarab Tank, which chases us around and spits endless streams of ammunition from its minigun-like weaponry – occasionally calling in reinforcements of robotic walking drones. Luckily, each greater challenge usually resulted in a better weapon or valuable item. But the best rewards usually came from other players we were able to successfully take out and inherit their best gear. Quite a few times, we were on the losing end of those engagements, leaving us having to scrounge together a new Exo-Rig and weapon loadout from our stash to rebuild the collection on the next run.

My favorite moment of the day happened as my team was itching to get out with lives intact and our pockets full of riches. We scramble to the nearest extraction point, only to find another team trying to do the same. An escape aircraft is on the ground, seconds away from taking off and leaving us behind. As it slowly climbs off the ground, I mount a last-ditch effort to get on board. Desperately, I fire my grappling hook into the closing doors of the plane and sling to the core of the cargo hold. Instinctively, I start hammering my melee attack, downing one poor soul before successfully exiting the map with my hard-earned plunder. My teammates were not so lucky, being left in the kill-or-be-killed area below to find their way out. Thankfully for them, they found another spot to extract and we've all escaped with an exciting story to tell.

While Exoborne has its hooks in me now, the long tail of a live service game is what's important. They also have to attract and keep people who aren't already acquainted with a genre that's not the easiest to get into. When asking Rodrigo about why the team wanted to make an extraction shooter, he told me, "We believe that there is a huge potential in this type of game, and we hope that our mix of ideas is appealing to a wide audience. And from what I've seen, I don't think there's anything quite like it." Exoborne is currently set for a playtest from February 12 - 17 and is scheduled to release sometime in 2025.

Want to get in some more gaming sessions with a friend? Our best multiplayer games list is for you!

Explaining the news on Twitter, Pilestedt explains that working on the Helldivers IP for so long has meant putting his family second and it's now time to change that. While Pilestedt doesn't share how long he'll be away for exactly, he does share that he'll be "working on the next Arrowhead game" upon his return.

"I know a lot of you are going to think, "por qué?" - well, while you have enjoyed Helldivers 2 for almost a year, I have been living it since early 2016, and with Helldivers - its since 2013," he explains.

"11 years of working 'around the clock' on the same IP has made me set aside family, friends, and my lovely wife... and myself. I am going to take some time now to redeem what was lost from all of those that supported me for over a decade."

Amusingly, Pilestedt also shares that he kicked the sabbatical off by hosting a game jam with some of Arrowhead's most senior developers and founders. Except, well, the game they jammed "wasn't that great."

"Sometimes, you've just got to reconnect with yourself and your bros," he says. "The journey is sometimes the goal"

Words to live by.

As Helldivers 2 players hope to get their Crysis on, Arrowhead CEO says he'd "be surprised" if they didn't add a bow "at some point."

This saga started a few weeks ago when Reddit user Habooskie, whose Twitch and YouTube channels have officially become NoDamageRocket, shared their oddball GM grind with the Marvel Rivals Reddit community. It turns out high-level pacifist play is possible when your entire kit is support abilities. Rocket reached GM 2 smack in the middle of our interview at the time, and in the days since they've climbed all the way to Celestial 3. Sadly, their perfect record received a black mark.

In a short video covering the accident, NoDamageRocket shows that an enemy Cloak & Dagger ran into their line of fire and took 22 damage. See, Rocket's primary fire hasn't actually been disabled throughout this run; as NoDamageRocket explained in a Reddit reply, "I don't unbind my primary because I still need to shoot ankhs and other non-playable items."

Shooting these things doesn't count as dealing damage and it does help the team, plus it had never caused any issues until now. NoDamageRocket had accidentally dealt damage in quickplay before – perhaps that was an omen – but their competitive grind was clean. Frankly, I'm amazed it took this long for a slip-up to happen.

"The funny thing was, my gut was telling me to absolutely NOT shoot that ankh, but it's been sitting there for a while and it's a pivotal pushing point for my team, so I took a risk," NoDamageRocket tells me. They estimate this disaster struck somewhere around the GM2 stage of their climb.

"My goal now is to hopefully get top 500," NoDamageRocket adds. "And I'm cooking up a surprise as a token of appreciation for all the support!!! But it's a flarkin' secret."

To their credit, they owned up to the mistake and preserved their pacifist reputation as best they could: "That was my own fault. I apologized for hitting him!!" I'm pretty sure that hitting somebody with a live grenade doesn't count if you say 'Sorry!' really quickly afterward, so while the zero damage record may not stand, I'd say the achievement endures.

This unintended damage aside, if you're wondering why their competitive record does show KOs, that's because "I'm now target banned every now and then, so I have to resort to other healer," per their Reddit explainer. Ironically, NoDamageRocket's backup plan is none other than Cloak & Dagger.

Here are all the Marvel Rivals upcoming characters.

"With Arc Raiders, we wanted to lean into some of the contemporary conversations around robots and AI," explains Sven Grundberg, director of brand and communications at Embark Studios. "Depending on who you ask, the prospect of intelligent machines is as terrifying as it is mind-blowing and exciting, so this game felt like an opportunity to explore that." It's perhaps all the more resonant that these robots, the titular Arc, aren't Arnie's killer terminators but something even less humanoid yet also recognisable right now, be it flying sentry drones or larger threats with animalistic limbs straight out of Boston Dynamics' labs.

Rise of the robots

There is nonetheless a notable retro style to Arc Raiders' science fiction, with '80s inspirations coming not just from action sci-fi movies but also fashion and music, including the 80s-inspired synthpop of Robyn's 'Dancing On My Own' that accompanied the game's announcement back in 2021. “We like to say that this is a grounded sci-fi game with bold contrasts — the environment and the world are full of historical artifacts mixed with futuristic remnants, and the ARC machines are an embodiment of this style, blending the foreign and the familiar,” says Grundberg.

It's a decade that undeniably continues to influence our pop culture but Grundberg tells us that they also wanted to bring their own fresh spin to it instead of just a mere nostalgia play. "We really felt that the throwback nature of the style embodied Arc Raiders’ story and helped bring our post-post-apocalyptic setting to life. The style also allowed us to convey that humanity was starting all over again, but not entirely from scratch."

In other words, don't expect a complete reset of civilization like Horizon's hunter-gatherer tribes but a still recognizable humanity that has taken refuge underground, save for the raiders who dare to venture to the surface, facing not only deadly machines but other rival raiders, for all the precious loot that they can carry on their steel frame backpacks in exchange for better gear and upgrades back at the den. It's in its worldbuilding, which includes a lot of destroyed buildings, with rooftops that you can easily zipline across also make for great vantage points, where Arc Raiders hopes to stand out from the extraction shooter competition. It's a goal that could open it up to newcomers just as much as giving extra depth to players who've already cut their teeth on the likes of Escape from Tarkov.

"We think that Arc Raiders is uniquely positioned in that it branches beyond the extraction genre with elements of action survival, adventure, and battle royale as well – opening the door for players who may not have tried an extraction shooter before, but keeping the high-stakes elements current extraction players love," explains Grundberg. "We’re also focusing a lot on building out the universe – It’s been really important to us throughout this process that the world of Arc Raiders is something vibrant and dynamic, with a rich narrative and versatile gameplay, enabling players to really immerse themselves in our world. We really think there’s an adventure here for any kind of player."

Multiplayer shooters are a ruthlessly competitive space – look no further than the high-profile casualties of Hyenas and Concord – yet some of its best can also be intimidating and inaccessible. There's however a lot to be hopeful for Embark in making Arc Raiders a more approachable and appealing extraction shooter that may make it a mainstream hit. It certainly helps that it already has the success of The Finals under its belt, and is taking those learnings directly into Arc Raiders – though crucially not all of them, given its pivot from free-to-play to premium release. "Launching a game in practice is one thing in theory and another thing in reality," says Grundberg. "The Finals was Embark’s first game to market, and we’re learning things every day. We recently hosted a closed tech test and the feedback we received was very encouraging and helped to point us in the right direction with how to continue to grow the game and optimize the experience for players." There's plenty of reason to hop in and scavenge come launch.

If your trigger finger can't wait for Arc Raiders, check out the best FPS games that made our list

The Fortune and Colors event ends on February 14, 2025, at 9AM UTC, which is 1AM PST / 4AM EST / 9AM GMT.

How to get Marvel Rivals Danqing and spend it

Danqing is the key currency in the inaugural Marvel Rivals Fortune and Colors lunar new year event, and you earn it by completing event challenges and missions, most of which are related to the limited-time Clash of the Dancing Lions game mode. Some regular challenges, which can be completed in any mode, also offer small amounts of Danqing as well as Chrono Tokens for your Marvel Rivals battle pass.

These are unfortunately time-gated, so you'll have to play regularly over the course of the three-week event to guarantee you get all the Danqing you need. However, from February 6, you'll also be able to exchange Units for Danqing. Units are much harder to earn and are used to buy many non-battle pass cosmetics, so I'd avoid this unless nothing in the in-game store takes your interest.

However you get your Danqing in Marvel Rivals, you can navigate to the Fortune and Colors event page via the game's home menu and spend it in batches of 100 by pressing the Paint button in the bottom-right corner of the screen. This paints a section of the background illustration and contributes towards the rewards progress bar which unlocks the following cosmetics in this order, although the exact amount of Danqing needed to unlock each reward isn't specified:

1. Drum and Roar nameplate
2. Snake's Luck spray
3. 200 Chrono Tokens
4. Lion's Mane nameplate
5. Lion's Mane spray
6. Lion's Mane Star-Lord costume
7. "Of Festivals and Friends" gallery card memento

Playing a bit of the 3v3 basketball-like Clash of the Dancing Lions arcade mode might make for a good break between Marvel Rivals ranked matches. There's also plenty more to look forward to after this event ends, particularly when it comes to Marvel Rivals upcoming characters.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

After a nine-year hiatus following Mafia 3's controversial open world pivot, The Old Country will bring us back to where our well-dressed capers started: Sicily in the 1900s, birthplace of the Cosa Nostra crime family. There's a lot to be excited for – including, as contributor Jeremy Peel puts it, cars that "are so slow they go backwards" – but for many, Mafia's less-is-more open worlds and granular approach to game mechanics will make the wait until launch feel unbearably long.

The old ways are better

When Mafia: The Old Country's 2025 release window was announced last December, fans wondered whether publisher 2K's other upcoming crime game – this little-known thing called Grand Theft Auto 6 – would overshadow its long-awaited return. After all, they're both third-person action games with an emphasis on dangerous driving, gang warfare, and shooting (all what we call "crimes") in that order.

But really, the series' similarities are skin-deep. Where Grand Theft Auto has thrived in making increasingly vast sandboxes – a do anything, crash anywhere approach – the Mafia series' strengths lie in a more linear, narrative-driven experience. Mafia (presumably) won't let you seamlessly jump to a protagonist halfway across a horizon-spanning map, or rain missiles from above in a flying murder-bike. But you know what it will let you do? Obey traffic laws or get fined – or in the case of The Old Country's old-timey setting, ogle at one of them fancy automobiles while traipsing behind its fumes on horseback.

While Mafia 3 took a shot at emulating Grand Theft Auto's formula, the result was a game that buried its fantastic story beneath a convoluted open world. Now, The Old Country is going back to its roots as a narrative-first action game. Throw in the fact we'll likely be playing 100 years or so in the past, and there's plenty to separate the two – something that The Old Country game director Alex Cox has already pointed out.

"If you track both GTA and Mafia since 2000-ish, 2002 when GTA 3 and Mafia came out, they were mechanically very similar games," Cox told IGN last month. "But Mafia's always had a bit more focus on its linear narrative versus the sandbox experiences, which Rockstar does industry super-best quality. Actually Mafia over time has become increasingly more about the linear story, and so I don't think the games are fundamentally that similar other than they have a shared theme."

Meanwhile, we've seen an increasing amount of games play with more systemic pushback. Some of that is big – sequels like Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 are taking their series' infamously-challenging worlds and doubling down on their survival elements and realism-driven combat – while other instances are far smaller. Think of the way Baldur's Gate 3 necessitates sleep, appropriating D&D's long rests rather than smoothing over it in a way we're more familiar with. Dragon's Dogma 2 made fast-travelling time-consuming or costly depending on whether you jumped on a wagon or used a pricey crystal to teleport, forcing players to plan for long journeys between settlements.

Game worlds are being designed less for players to steamroll through, and more to feel lived within. It's something Mafia has always been ahead of the curve on. Its prime example is having to obey traffic laws – speeding, skipping through red lights, and otherwise being a menace on the road will result in you being pulled over by the police. That sort of attention isn't ideal for the mob shenanigans you're very likely on the road for, so throughout the game it's in your best interest to behave whenever possible.

Pair all of that with more and more players falling out of love with endless open worlds, and 2025 begins to feel like the perfect storm for Mafia: The Old Country. I'm hoping our trip to Sicily has more of that mechanical texture – whatever shape that may entail, given 20th century Sicilian traffic laws may be a little early for speeding tickets. Dated automobiles should feel awkward to drive, and I'd love for melee weapons to be as much of a necessity as they've felt through trailers so far. Throw in a linear mob story as personable as the first two titles, and this thing of ours could be onto a winner.

Stay up-to-date with what's coming up with our list of upcoming game release dates for 2025

Dubbed the "heavy resupply," this stratagem suggested by Reddit user SprocketCreations would be a standard in-mission one just like the regular resupply, so it wouldn't take up one of your other slots. These packs would function like SEAF artillery shells, meaning you'll be slowed down when you grab one. But we all know about the drop and run trick, right? Real patriots do, anyway.

You could then use these packs to resupply the ammo on the mounted gun on your FRV or the bullets and missiles in your mechs. The catch is, if you call one of these heavy resupplies in, it'll trigger a cooldown for your regular resupply too, so you'll have to "choose between their helldivers or their vehicles."

There's also a mock up for a heavy supply pack that would work like the standard resupply backpack, only this would only have one refill, so you'd have to use it wisely.

[OC] Another proposal for re-arming vehicles from r/Helldivers

You can sort of already resupply your vehicles and mechs by just calling them in again once they cool down, but if you're on a planet that delays this, it can take a very long time, so this is a good work around.

I love the idea, and Helldivers 2 game director Johan Pilestedt also calls it a "good idea!" Who knows, maybe he'll implement it in a future update.

Recently, the Palworld community manager told someone on Twitter that they wouldn't get sucked into their rage bait that stated Helldivers 2 had failed compared to the creature catching game.

In the meantime, check out our 50 most anticipated games of the year.

In a post to the Marvel Rivals subreddit on January 19, dinglederg shared the stats behind their pacifist rank climb. Trace sessions with other heroes aside, they hit Grandmaster 3 after 18.6 hours of Rocket support, which consisted of 108 matches, 71 wins, over 2.9 million points of healing, and zero damage dealt. Zip. Nada. No KOs, no critical hits, just pure healing. And yes, their tracked account stats do match up.

If you're wondering why they still have an accuracy rating, that's because "I still need to shoot ankhs, Loki clones and enemy Rocket beacons," as dinglederg explained in a Reddit reply. "They don't count as damage though." And if you're asking, as I was, why their total account record shows 32 damage dealt with Rocket, dinglederg says "that was a casual game. An enemy was getting revived by the beacon and it counted into damage! In Competitive I still do 0 damage though!" Here again, the stats don't lie.

Two big questions come up whenever players create their own mountains just so they can have the privilege of climbing them: how and why? The how is actually fairly simple here. Rocket Raccoon's kit is almost entirely support-based. In fact, he's arguably the only Marvel Rivals hero who could pull off a no-damage run without throwing matches straight off a cliff.

That said, dinglederg's limited play style has still sparked understandable discussions about getting carried by teammates, which is inevitable to some degree when you're actively avoiding dealing damage. Supports are great, but they need someone to support. Someone has to hit back. The best support players across virtually all games can keep their team alive while squeezing in whatever damage they can, after all, so playing this defensively isn't generally recommendable. But in Marvel Rivals, there's also no denying the impact of a good Strategist who knows how to stay alive. If you can do that, personal damage or no, you're probably doing better than a lot of people in Comp.

Even while ignoring Rocket's bombard mode projectiles – which can deal relevant damage at close range – dinglederg can still lob consistent heals, dish out damage boosts, and both revive and armor teammates, and these are all much more valuable to the team than Rocket's damage. That said, dinglederg mostly chose Rocket because they like the character – "plus I get to say flark which I think is funny," they add – which gets us into the why.

"I didn't really practice it, except for maybe just playing [quickplay] for fun and learning the ropes of Rocket!" dinglederg tells me. "To be honest I didn't set out to do this as some kind of challenge or anything, it honestly just kinda happened."

In a Reddit response, they added: "I think of my 100 games, I had a handful complaining about me playing Rocket, but it's usually at the beginning. I just ignore all the toxic nonsense and say 'Rocket's got yer flarkin back >:D.'"

Apart from a "handful of games" pre-Platinum, dinglederg says they've played entirely solo. I originally thought this might be an experienced player experimenting with a gimmick alt, but dinglederg says this is their only Marvel Rivals account. Dinglederg did have some Overwatch experience going, but says "I was never good at that game."

In case their Reddit reception and branded Twitter didn't give it away, the pacifist Rocket persona has really caught on. (Their username, NoDmgRocket, was actually going to be PacifistRocket, but that was taken.) "People generally are very charmed and amused about the thing cuz I like to roleplay as Rocket to add some positivity and humor into an already intensive game! Saying things like 'Flark yeah!' or 'Rocket's got yer back!' or 'We flarkin' got this!' It makes people laugh and it puts them in a good mood! Which I feel helps a lot."

With Grandmaster summited, dinglederg does "wanna see how far I can go." They're now GM2 and still going. "Here's hoping I reach Celestial," they said. Godspeed, you pacifist raccoon.

Marvel Rivals still can't escape the Overwatch comparisons as it introduces a very familiar limited-time mode for its Spring Festival event: "Can't believe we're getting Lúcioball again."

Announced today, Marvel Rivals developer NetEase games has unveiled Clash of the Dancing Lions – a soccer-like mode that'll be available to play from this Thursday, January 23. Ever since Marvel Rivals was first shown off, it's been unable to avoid comparisons to fellow hero shooter Overwatch, and it's not escaped that fate here either, because, yeah, it's hard not to think of Blizzard's own Lúcioball when you look at this. 

Lúcioball is the star of Overwatch's annual Summer Games event – a Rocket League-style 3v3 mode that has players tear around a soccer field, blasting an enormous ball around with Lúcio's abilities to score goals. It's fantastic fun, and a nice change of pace from the regular modes, but needless to say, seeing another hero shooter put a soccer mode in as a limited-time seasonal event is giving players déjà vu.

"We got Lúcioball in [Marvel Rivals] before GTA 6," one fan responds to the trailer on Twitter. "Can't believe we're getting Lúcioball again," writes another. 

To be fair, other than the fact that it's another seasonal soccer mode, Clash of the Dancing Lions does look pretty different to Lúcioball in terms of how it plays. For a start, the ball itself isn't comically large, and it generally looks like it'll control in a more precise way than its slightly chaotic Overwatch counterpart. Soccer is soccer, of course – the very literal goal appears to be the same, but it does appear that there'll be different strategies to implement here. 

Beyond the mode itself, there are also some neat seasonal skins to grab, if they take your fancy. The Star-Lord one is actually set to be a free reward according to the trailer, which is particularly brilliant for anyone who mains the Duelist – don't miss out when the event starts later this week. 

While you're here, be sure to check out our tier list of the best Marvel Rivals characters.

"We had just come out of a project at another studio where we got to 'break' New York," explains Sharkmob co-founder Martin Hultberg [presumably meaning Tom Clancy's The Division, on which he was IP director], "so it seemed natural that the next step was to break the world. We looked at a bunch of different extinction level scenarios, but landed on extreme weather as the more interesting one because of how primal and dynamic it is. It is a type of disaster everyone understands."

World unbuilding

Signs of the end times are everywhere. Structures are broken, areas are abandoned, and sinkholes have appeared. Which, of course, is great! That means the world you'll be playing in is a world full of gameplay possibilities. "Since it is a disaster that evolved over time it has left layers of destruction, and those layers help create the character of this world," says Hultberg. "You can tell you are in the United States because of architecture, branding, billboards, vehicles, etc., but everything is… off. Things are in places they shouldn’t be, buildings partially buried or sheared off, some areas overgrown and others washed out. All these areas effectively become different biomes that affect how you play and fight – a playground of verticality, unexpected discoveries, and dangerous combat spaces."

Why venture out into this dangerous world at all? Because there are precious resources to be had out there, resources that you can use back at base to craft and upgrade the kit that will help you come back alive. Resources, it's worth noting, that enemy players will also be looking to scavenge; from your corpse, if necessary (and you'll all also be fighting the enemy NPC factions). Weapons and mods can be customized, but so can your all-important exosuit, known as an exo-rig.

Your exo-rig has slots that can be upgraded with certain abilities. A shield would come in handy, right? So would some extra armor. But you're after loot, remember, so expanding your inventory space would be a pretty good investment. Perhaps you'd like the ability to scan for enemies through walls, or call in an airstrike. You can set up your rig in a way that best suits your playstyle. However you play, it also hides a grappling hook and a paraglider, giving you the best chance of being able to navigate the ruined landscape, and to master the deadly conditions and even use them to your advantage.

All this – the exploration, the firefights, the traversal of a broken world – takes place in the midst of a dynamic, painstakingly crafted weather system, as Hultberg explains. "Although Unreal 5 is a powerful tool, when it comes to our weather it has required a lot of design, engineering, lighting, and special effects work to get to the point we are at now. The complexity is not just in the different weather sets, but also in how they synergize with the powers of the exo-rigs, transition to other sets, blend, interact with each other, and interact with other systems creating emergent gameplay that means every session is unique."

If you're feeling particularly brave, you can set out into the world by yourself, defying ridiculous odds like a Hollywood sci-fi action hero. With unpredictable lightning strikes that can fry you though, and tornadoes to send you hurtling through the air while a group of enemies tries to give you a few extra holes, you might be better off playing alongside a few others to tip those odds slightly more in your favour. They'll be able to revive you when you're downed, too, assuming someone or something else doesn't get to you first.

Exoborne is lining itself up perfectly to provide a unique and memorable extraction shooter experience. "We are putting a lot of weight on the forces of nature, agile traversal across the world, and the power fantasy of the exo-rigs," Hulberg says. "Those three things combined provide a kind of shooter gameplay that we feel stands out from the rest and offers a thrilling and rewarding experience, with high risk – high reward in the sessions but a more consistent long-term progression."

To pass the time until Exoborne's launch, here are the best shooters you can play right now

For one thing, Marvel Rivals is swamping Overwatch 2 in numbers with an all-time peak of 644,269 players on the Steam charts alone (which don't account for console players or players on other PC platforms), compared to Overwatch's all-time high of just 75,361, and an average player count of 3-400,000 compared to Overwatch's average of just around 30,000.

But the tale of the tape between Marvel Rivals and Overwatch goes beyond player counts, especially because there are mitigating factors to consider. Overwatch 2 is currently unavailable in NetEase's home country of China, which carries a huge audience of players that haven't been able to play Overwatch for 2 years - though it'll be back in the country in February, which could see the game's numbers spike. And of course, Overwatch doesn't have the power of the most popular superhero IP in the world backing its game.

No, what's truly telling about the seemingly one-sided fist-fight between Marvel Rivals and Overwatch 2 is the way Rivals is quickly delivering on promises Overwatch 2 has failed to keep or even make since before the sequel devoured its aging parent game to much controversy back in 2022.

Perfecting patches

Marvel Rivals just kicked off its first official season 1 after a truncated introductory season 0, and along with a much-needed balance patch, the game is already implementing features it took years for Overwatch 2 to heed. This includes a streamer mode that makes player names anonymous, and offering up detailed statistical info on the previous season's player data to provide some context on the content of the balance patch - something Overwatch 2 still doesn't do.

NetEase is also vowing to ban hardware adaptors that allow console players to use mouse-and-keyboard control schemes to take advantage of the auto-aim applied to controllers, a continuing problem in many games, Overwatch 2 included.

Crucially, the aforementioned balance patch did indeed address many of the issues commonly felt by players, including nerfs for Hela and Hawkeye, who remain deadly, viable heroes, but are less oppressive, and even making some changes to Jeff the Land Shark's notorious ultimate ability to align its hitbox more closely with its animation.

These are common pain-points addressed by players and content creators alike, and along with being reflected in the player data given by NetEase, it shows the developers are listening intently to the game's thriving (and vocal) community. And that's not even mentioning the new maps and new game mode that were also added in Marvel Rivals season 1.

NetEase's latest promise, that a new hero will be added to Marvel Rivals every six weeks, is also exciting news for fans, as that schedule easily eclipses the rate at which most other games in the genre add new characters to their rosters. For example, Overwatch only adds a new hero every other season, leaving periods of up to three months or more without any new heroes.

Marvel Rivals also has the added benefit that just about any character who may be added to the game, such as the upcoming Thing and Human Torch, will carry built-in fan anticipation thanks to years of comics and other stories backing them up.

And while it would be unfair to expect Blizzard to somehow generate thousands and thousands of comics and dozens of movies and shows to prop up their heroes, this does butt up against another growing pain-point for many Overwatch players who have noticed a marked downswing in the amount of lore and character development from Blizzard in recent years. Marvel Rivals even has dozens of in-game text stories to read, something Overwatch 2 fans would likely sweat over.

Super season

While we'll have to wait and see whether or not Marvel Rivals can deliver on its six-week hero release schedule while maintaining the quality of each character, for many gamers, Overwatch 2 has already become the king of broken promises.

Billed as a true sequel to Overwatch, the game that brought hero shooters into the mainstream and quickly became the go-to game for new players to the genre, Overwatch 2 promised to overhaul the game's core PvP game mode with a switch from 6 player teams down to 5, while innovating the existing Overwatch framework with a new PvE mode that would allow players to team up and upgrade their heroes through a story campaign.

However, Overwatch 2 eventually launched with only the PvP updates ready to go, overwriting the original Overwatch entirely, while also going free-to-play with a new battle pass mechanic - the overwhelming trend of successful new hero shooters, Marvel Rivals included. This alienated some fans, but also brought in a ton of new players who finally had access to the now free game.

What really pissed people off though, were the constant delays to the much vaunted PvE mode, which was finally outright canceled, with some of its proposed elements later being incorporated into temporary seasonal modes. That was the last straw for many Overwatch 2 players, even many of the ones who have faithfully stuck around. And while I personally wasn't too concerned (PvP will always be my bread-and-butter for Overwatch, a game I still play), the anger and disappointment among fans was palpable at the time, marking a huge shift in the way the game and its new content have been perceived since.

That's not to say Overwatch 2 is flailing; the latest hero addition Hazard has been relatively popular, and if it weren't directly competing with the New Relationship Energy that is still gripping the community around Marvel Rivals, the current season of the game would likely be getting a lot more positive attention. A revived 6v6 role queue mode has proved so popular that it went from being a temporary playtest to an all-season-long game mode, for example.

But for fans who feel burned by broken promises, an often sluggish response to serious concerns, and a content faucet that often feels more like a slow drip, Marvel Rivals is roaring out of the gate, building not just a massive ongoing playerbase, but an overall positive relationship with its community in a way that Overwatch 2 has been desperately trying to achieve for literally years at this point.

For some, that's a gap that can never be closed - gamers are a fickle lot, and we are all too willing to embrace a game that offers a better experience over tried-and-true titles we've been playing for years. And there are others, still dedicated to Overwatch 2, for whom Marvel Rivals has felt like only a momentary, flawed distraction from the honed edge of their old favorite.

But for the general gaming community, the real victory of Marvel Rivals over Overwatch (or vice versa) will simply come down to which game can keep anticipating and rising to the demands of its players, while also keeping an open line of communication between the developers and their customers, a necessity in today's live-service gaming environment.

As far as I'm concerned, Marvel Rivals has already staked a claim as the hero shooter to watch moving forward, bringing a level of competition to the genre that can only be beneficial to players of both Rivals and Overwatch 2. And if Blizzard is smart, they're paying close attention to the way NetEase is building a foundation around its rapport with its community of fans and players.

If you're diving into the action yourself, check out our Marvel Rivals character tier list.

"Biohazard 4 will definitely release only on the GameCube," Mikami told the Japanese magazine Hyper Capcom Special for its summer 2002 edition, according to a fan translation. "Not on another console. If it [is ported elsewhere], I will commit seppuku."

Seppuku, or hara-kiri: a samurai's ritual suicide by forcing a short blade across and up the stomach, death by disembowelment. It's a grisly commitment to one's honor, albeit a melodramatic sacrifice for the company that made Mario Kart Double Dash.

Later, IGN got more specific with Resident Evil 4 producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi. What about the PS2, which had more horror games than just Luigi's Mansion? Surely Resident Evil 4 would make it to that console.

"Definitely not. Definitely not," Kobayashi said, channeling Mikami's gritted teeth loyalty. "It's a GameCube exclusive." A few months after his interview, publisher Capcom announced that Resident Evil 4 was getting a PS2 port.

So Mikami left Capcom in 2006, one year after Resident Evil 4 came out, and he eventually founded Tango Gameworks in 2010. While searching for developers for the new studio, Mikami updated his website with a now-defunct Flash game called Harakiri that let potential employees use a samurai (who appeared to be Killer7 developer Goichi Suda) to chop off what seemed to be Mikami's head. It dutifully screamed Tango recruitment phrases as his skull tumbled through the sky.

At least the game was a more healthy outlet for Mikami's GameCube disappointment. And it, along with time passing, appears to have worked magic. Now, Mikami is totally healed from the wound to his pride – he happily played the Resident Evil 4 remake on PS5 in 2023, writing on Twitter that he "enjoyed it very much." It certainly beats cutting open an artery.

Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami on the making of a horror classic: "one by one staff would resign from the job."

Sure, it's fun to watch health bars disappear as a damage-dealing Duelist, or see them steadily rise while playing a more supportive Strategist. But you know what's better? Watching your own health refuse to budge while everyone else's (friend or foe, it makes no difference) collapses like a dying star. That is the unshakeable power – nay, the burden – of Vanguards, who must hold the line and cling to the objective at all costs. Sometimes, as a little treat, you can sic yourself on the enemy's backline and cackle as they crumble around you. And if we lose because of it? Eh, blame the Duelist.

Punch drunk

In last year's Marvel Rivals beta, I fell in love with Venom. Venom is a pretty strange tank due to his mobility, which lets him swing around the map and climb up walls, but he feels much more conventional when you dive into the thick of things and lock down an entire team with his sticky moveset. I've not played Venom as much since Marvel Rivals' full launch, but I'm quick on the draw to lock in Thor, and my soft spot for Overwatch's shield-toting nice boy Reinhardt means Magneto is a logical favorite.

The trio thrive in slightly different encounters. Venom and Thor are great picks for charging into the enemy's frontline, while Magneto is best-placed on the objective to draw enemy fire. But they all need to be in the midst of combat to be effective, and that means walking a tightrope between playing for the team and playing for kills. I try – I really, really do – to stick to the former, often physically planting myself in front of the objective so that my squishier team can seize it in peace. But, as every Marvel Rivals player will know, the temptation to go completely and utterly apeshit never truly goes away. All it takes is an eyeful of low-health Duelists – or in Venom's case, a mid-swing glimpse of five bunched-up supes – and it's go time.

Of course, go time typically means charging in for a quick glut of KOs before the accumulative firepower of their entire team takes you down like a rampaging elephant brought low by a flurry of tranquilizer darts. Listen: I know it's wrong, and I know pushing too far ahead of your team is rarely the smartest strategy. But those sweet moments where you are the worst thing to happen to the enemy team, before it all comes crashing down, make it all worth it – even if your newly-vulnerable Strategists may disagree.

Alternately, you can actually get away with a lot of these antics because almost everyone is doing it. The newness of Marvel Rivals means that things like metas and "right" ways of doing things aren't as concrete at a casual level, which allows for a lot of things working that shouldn't. Balanced team compositions? Disciplined front-to-back teamfighting? Players even knowing what their character does? Be realistic: this is a suped-up free-for-all on both sides, meaning Venom bowling into opponents like a sticky bowling ball is often a perfectly viable tactic.

I don't tend to dabble in competitive shooters any more, so this sort of messiness is far more to my liking than matches dictated by a stringent meta. Marvel Rivals character tier lists go some way toward shaping a norm, but even that's more a personal decision to seek out and inform who you'll play, rather than an expectation. Hero shooters, with their higher health pools across the board and glut of healing sources, are by their nature a little more casual-minded than the likes of Call of Duty or Escape from Tarkov. In ranked play there's room to flesh out a meta and play up the genre's much-adored emphasis on teamwork, but I'd love to see unranked matches keep their chaos-by-design vibe.

Marvel Rivals' Team-Ups and class system smartly offer a framework for cooperation without being too heavy-handed, and I'd love to see NetEase maintain that approach going forward. Sure, working as a cohesive team to scrap out a victory is deeply rewarding in its own right, and I'll always play to win – but all tanking and no trouncing makes Thor a dull boy.

The spidey suit from Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is coming to Marvel Rivals just in time for the open-world game's PC debut

For some context, the Predator Bow is an incredibly popular weapon in the 2013 first-person shooter Crysis 3, and there's been a lot of demand for a Crysis crossover in Helldivers 2. Tonally, it makes sense, they're both futuristic sci-fi shooters with hostile aliens, and with Crysis 4 finally in development after such a long wait, it would be pretty timely.

Anyway, nothing like that has been announced or even teased just yet, but it sure as heck sounds like a bow and arrow in Helldivers 2 is a very real possibility, which would pretty much be the next best thing. In a Discord Q&A, Arrowhead CEO Shams Jorjani said he'd be surprised if Helldivers 2 never added a bow and arrow as a weapon.

"I haven't seen any plans for a bow afaik," Jorjani said. "But I'd be surprised if we didn't see one AT SOME POINT."

The capitalized "AT SOME POINT" definitely implies there aren't any current plans for a bow and probably won't be for a while, but hey, that's the boss of the Helldivers 2 studio saying it'll likely eventually happen. That's worth something, I reckon.

Asked about Chris Pratt in the Helldivers 2 film, Arrowhead CEO says they want "as many A-list actors as possible" as long as "they all get violently killed immediately."

"We're all hoping for as many A-list actors as possible," Jorjani said in the Helldivers 2 Discord after being asked about players' fancasting Chris Pratt as an acid-spewing Bile Titan. "As long as they all get killed violently immediately."

While I'd personally be interested in seeing a famous actor like, say, Jacob Elordi bravely committing to the Helldivers' noble crusade against evil after, perhaps, agreeing to marry me, and then poignantly clinging to my black-and-white portrait as his beautiful body is, maybe, tragically crunched by a Devastator…or something…it's as of yet unclear who will star in the upcoming Helldivers adaptation.

Anyway, like I mentioned, it doesn't seem like Arrowhead will have a whole lot of influence over how Sony's movie turns out. Studio CCO Johan Pilestedt wrote recently on Twitter that, while Arrowhead will certainly be involved in the film's production, "the long answer" to what's the extent of that influence "is that we'll see."

"We are not Hollywood people," he continued, "and we don't know what it takes to make a movie. And therefore we don't, and shouldn't, have final say."

For its part, Sony has as of yet released few details about the Helldivers movie aside from the fact that it's in production. Fans have been letting their imaginations fill in the blanks, expecting the movie to end up like Paul Verhoeven's 1997 sci-fi classic Starship Troopers – starring Chris Pratt, apparently.

Helldivers 2 creative director says the studio "shouldn't" have final say on the movie as "we are not Hollywood people," but it still sounds like it'll be involved in some capacity.

The official PlayStation Twitter account revealed the Marvel Rivals version of the Advanced Suit 2.0, and I have to say, it translates beautifully to the online hero shooter's more cartoony art style. I might swing away with a negative K/D ratio because I suck at Spider-Man, but at least I'll look damn good doing it.

Marvel Rivals is adding the Advanced Suit 2.0 to Spider-Man's selection of skins on January 30 - the same day that Marvel's Spider-Man 2 releases on PC after a year-and-change of PS5 exclusivity.

Marvel Rivals launched last month and hit 10 million players in its first three days, and as it stands it's more popular than ever. Point being, you can expect more than just new skins in the hero shooter's future, with its game director having just recently said it'll get new heroes every six weeks.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2, however, not so much. Insomniac confirmed back in October that there's "no additional story content planned" for the acclaimed sequel. Hopefully the PC port bucks the years-long trend of PC ports of PlayStation games being just technically lesser versions of otherwise great games. After all, the PS5 version topped our list of the best Spider-Man games of all time, so it deserves a second life on PC.

In the meantime, here are 10 comics we'd recommend reading if you're playing Marvel Rivals and want to know more about the heroes you're playing.

It doesn't help that some Marvel Rival errors and codes have been specific to platforms like Xbox, Steam and Epic, potentially giving us multiple codes for the same problem. If you're having issues, then I've rounded up all the info I can find on the various issues and possible solutions floating around for Marvel Rivals and what fixes have been found.

Marvel Rivals Error code 10

Marvel Rivals error code 10 appears to be a broad error message for network issues, (with an error code 5 also often appearing at the same time). While it covers general connectivity, it often appears for platform or location specific issues. So this single code could indicate an issue with a specific console like Xbox, Steam, or a location or part of the world.

In terms of fixes, the obvious one is just to shut down the game and restart it to see if that flushes out any issues. It's also a good idea to check something like Downdetector for Marvel Rivals to see if there's any reported issues, as well as checking official accounts to see if servers are down for any reason. You should also check your game is fully up to date.

If all of that fails then it's likely a server side issue that you won't be able to do much with. In many cases when this error code has appeared it's been a nameless issue... somewhere, that player has had to just wait it out.

Marvel Rivals Error code 4

Marvel Rivals error code 4 is listed as an 'unknown error' and almost nothing is known about it, fittingly. However, one fix that seems to have worked for people is turning their wifi off and on again.

It does mainly seem to be PlayStation focused, and potentially suggests a network error specific to that platform. That means it's best to follow the advice for code 10 - so restart the game, check for updates, and check server statuses.

Given that it appears to be another network issue, the chances are there's little you can do your side except wait it out. That said, there's at least one report of the fix for code 21 below working on it. That seems to be Xbox focused, so it's possible these are two platform specific versions of the same thing.

Marvel Rivals Error code 21

Marvel Rivals error code 21 has one current fix at the moment, (with a slightly more detailed explanation here in the thread). It appears to mainly be an Xbox issue and it's worth trying all the usual fixes before you attempt this - reset the console, reset your router, check for server outages and updates etc - as you'll have to go into Xbox settings and change you DNS settings. The explanations linked above lay it all out more clearly, but the short version is that you need to go to your network settings and change the DNS to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.

Another, far more fiddley and specific fix listed above involves using a laptop and a VPN to access either a US or Japanese connection, and then using it as a hotspot to connect your Xbox and log in that way.

Marvel Rivals Error LS-0014

The Marvel Rivals LS-0014 error code is an Epic Game Store specific code, that says it's unable to verify the installation of the game. However, it seems to be caused by the game triggering antivirus software that prevents certain files downloading or launching. ESET software in particular gets called out in a few posts, but if you're having this issue then check what your antivirus is doing to see if it's interfering.

Marvel Rivals error code 258

There's not a lot to go on with Marvel Rivals error code 258, but that's largely because it seems to be easily fixed by simply repeating the log in process until it works. So it appears to be a minor login issue, perhaps during high traffic periods, that people are solving themselves by persevering.

Marvel Rivals error code 220

There's very little info on Marvel Rivals error code 220 but some evidence suggests it might relate to server location, with that either blocking some options or having a server selected that doesn't match your actual location, causing the issue. It also seems like firewall issues might have caused problems at some point, but that doesn't seem to fix the issue for many people at the moment.

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Spoilers for all of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League's story below.

Neither fans nor critics loved the game when it came out. In our own Kill the Justice League review, we wrote that "repetitive mission design, a messy confluence of combat systems, and the drive towards a cooperative live service structure ultimately undermine the game's strongest qualities."

I'm very much over live-service looter-shooters these days. They take up far too much of my time and I can't stand simply playing a game just to see the numbers go up. A good story can change that, though. I liked the move the game took with its brutal and underwhelming murder of Batman, but this ending completely ruins it.

In a two-minute-long comic strip, Harley Quinn spins a yarn that wraps everything up for us. Brainiac, the big bad who was trying to take over the multiverse, is defeated, and it's revealed that the Justice League that the Suicide Squad killed back on the original Earth was made up entirely of clones. So, Batman didn't actually actually get unceremoniously shot in the head, his clone did.

In a game titled Kill the Justice League, you didn't kill the Justice League at all. It makes the whole thing feel pretty pointless. I know the comics often have fake deaths and find ways to bring characters back to life, but 'they were clones all along' feels cliche.

For fans of Rocksteady's Batman: Arkham games, it's nice to know Batman is still alive and kicking and could return in a future game. Joyoboyogomu writes on Twitter: "As much as this is a fumble of a game, I’m glad that this essentially makes the entire game’s plot pointless and have zero impact on the story, especially revolving around Arkham Batman."

A big issue some take with the ending is its comic-strip style. Comic cutscenes can be great, especially in games inspired by the medium, but it feels anticlimactic to not even have a fully rendered 3D scene to finish the game with.

It doesn't seem like many of you even experienced the ending, as the player numbers have been dwindling for quite some time. SteamDB shows that after an initial peak of 13,459 players at the time of the game's release, only 505 are still playing today.

Now that it's over, check out all the upcoming video game release dates so you can figure out what to play next.

First spotted by GameSpot, Games Workshop CEO Kevin Rountree said in the company's latest earnings report that the company's success in the video game market can be attributed both to "established games" as well as the "success" of Space Marine 2, specifically. He then seemed to acknowledge the relatively niche space Warhammer has carved out for itself in the gaming segment.

"We recognise that successes like these for Warhammer are not a given in the world of video games. Clearly we are looking for the next one. We remain cautious when forecasting royalty income."

As it just launched in September, Space Marine 2's success hasn't been fully measured yet, but we know that as of October it had sold 4.5 million units. Put another way, the CCO of developer Saber Interactive said shortly after launch that the game's success was big enough that it "changes everything" for the developer, adding at the time, "you look at yourself through a different lens."

To get an idea of just why Space Marine 2 has been such a big hit, you could do a lot worse than reading our 4/5-star review, which states:

"Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is an exceptional, larger than life shooter that raises the bar for all Warhammer adaptations. A dizzying sense of scale, along with some of the slickest combat around, will leave you often breathless but always grinning."

2024 was the year I rekindled my love of shooters – and it's all thanks to Stalker 2, Black Ops 6, and Space Marine 2.

"We have forged a strong detection tool and couple with the keen judgment of our watchful human eyes to accurately identify those using keyboard and mouse adapters," the devs say in a new statement. "We believe that gaining an unjust advantage through such methods significantly impacts the gaming experience for our players. Therefore, whether on PC or console, we will take measures to vanquish this nefarious behavior. Penalties for users of keyboard and mouse adapters may include temporary or permanent account suspensions, removal from leaderboards, or other punishments depending on the circumstances."

Keyboard and mouse adapters are typically used on console to allow players to make use of the greater precision these devices offer over standard analog control sticks. On PC, they can also be used to fool a game into thinking you're using a controller when you're using a mouse - letting you enjoy the benefits of controller-style aim assist without giving up any mouse-based precision.

The devs call out "common adapters" including the "XIM series, Cronus Zen series, Titan Two series, KeyMander series, and Brook Sniper series," but they're making equal efforts to detect and counteract "any device enabling keyboard and mouse emulation of controller inputs." Here's hoping this anti-cheat efforts come out a little more complete than Marvel Rivals' ban on mods.

Here are the top 10 comics Marvel Rivals fans should start reading.

Marvel Rivals draws on comic stories going back decades, with a particular eye on adapting details from some of Marvel's biggest stories of recent years, including the current Marvel Rivals season 1, which takes some inspiration from summer 2024's Blood Hunt event.

That's just scratching the surface of the best comics to read if you love Marvel Rivals, so we've put together a list of 10 comics that are perfect for fans of the game with stories featuring characters from Cloak & Dagger, to Squirrel Girl, the Avengers, Moon Knight, the Fantastic Four, and many more.

The Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda

Just about every Marvel fan knows about Wakanda, the once hidden African nation ruled by T'Challa, the Black Panther. But Marvel Rivals shows a different vision of Wakanda - an Intergalactic Empire located in deep space. And while the setting provides some of the most visually distinctive and uniquely interactive maps in Marvel Rivals, the concept comes straight from comic books.

In comics, the Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda is actually led by none other than N'Jadaka, also known as Erik Killmonger, sworn enemy of T'Challa. As for T'Challa himself, the Black Panther ventures into space on a mission to liberate the people who have been conquered by N'Jadaka's empire. The story marks the capstone of acclaimed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates' time writing the adventures of the Black Panther, and with gorgeous art by Daniel Acuña, it's a perfect story for fans of Marvel Rivals.

Buy Black Panther: The Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda on Amazon

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl

Squirrel Girl has become an unlikely fan-favorite character in Marvel Rivals, even receiving some buffs in the game's most recent balance patch that make her "Squirrel stampede!" ultimate ability even more effective. And that's only fitting, as Squirrel Girl has a reputation in comics as being, well, unbeatable - to the point where she's faced down world-class baddies such as Doctor Doom and even Thanos with only her rascally rodent allies to help her.

That reputation is on full display in writer Ryan North and artists Erica Henderson and Derek Charm's long-running title Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, in which she takes on a variety of villains, including the aforementioned Thanos, all the way on up to the cataclysmically powerful Galactus, proud papa of Marvel Rivals' announcer Galacta. It's one of the funniest, most unabashedly exciting comics of the modern Marvel era.

Buy The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl on Amazon

Spider-Verse

If you've played Marvel Rivals, you've almost certainly done your part escorting Spider-Zero to the chambers of the Mast Weaver (or tried to stop her progress, depending on which side of the map you're on). And if that bit of Spider-centric storytelling strikes your fancy, there's simply no better way to whet your whistle and get your fix than by diving into the original Spider-Verse comic event, which lends the Tokyo 2099 maps their inspiration.

Written by Dan Slott, scribe of more Spider-Man comics than anyone else in Marvel history, Stan Lee included, Spider-Verse centers on not just one Spidey, but dozens of them as they come together across the Multiverse to take down a group of villains who wish to kill them all one-by-one. It's the tale that launched a whole franchise and inspired not just the Marvel Rivals maps, but the popular Spider-Verse animated films.

Buy Spider-Verse on Amazon

Blood Hunt

Marvel Rivals season 1 is all about Dracula and his vampires taking over the Earth, centered on New York City, which provides the backdrop for the new maps added to the game as part of the seasonal content. That's remarkably close to Marvel's latest big summer event Blood Hunt, in which an army of vampires try to take over the Earth after casting the world into eternal darkness. But the twist is, it's not Dracula who's leading the vampire invasion - it's another Marvel character whose villain turn is a huge surprise.

Just about the entire Marvel Universe is part of Blood Hunt, including the original Moon Knight Marc Spector, who is raised from the dead in the event. So in addition to the main story, there are numerous tie-ins - most of which don't have to be read to understand the core narrative. That said, the Fantastic Four Blood Hunt tie-in will be a real treat for fans of Reed Richards and his role in Marvel Rivals, showing how Mister Fantastic adapts to the vampire invasion of New York City.

Buy Blood Hunt on Amazon

Savage Avengers

Marvel Rivals puts players on a ragtag squad of Marvel heroes and villains teaming up on an adventure that takes them through numerous timelines and worlds of the Multiverse. And that's the exact vibe of 2021's Savage Avengers by writer David Pepose and artist Carlos Magno, which sends a team of unlikely Avengers to the timeline of none other than Conan the Barbarian as they go on the run from Deathlok, a cyborg assassin from the future sent to eliminate temporal anomalies.

With a team that's led by Elektra in her current role as Daredevil and which also includes Anti-Venom, Cloak & Dagger, Wolverine/Hulk hybrid Weapon H, and classic Avenger the Black Knight, there's plenty for fans of Marvel Rivals to sink their teeth into - including the evolution of Cloak & Dagger's friendship into a romance. And with a second volume that takes them into a team-up with Punisher 2099 (one of the coolest alternate skins in Marvel Rivals) in a dystopian future, it's the perfect comic for fans of the game.

Buy Savage Avengers on Amazon

West Coast Avengers

Jeff the Land Shark is unquestionably the breakout star of Marvel Rivals thanks to his adorably vicious presence and his meme-worthy ultimate ability (even if he's not at the top of the tier-list). If you're a new Jeff fan, Marvel Comics has more than its share of Land Shark stories for you, including his very own It's Jeff! comic. But we'll go back to the start and suggest that readers take a look at 2018's West Coast Avengers by writer Kelly Thompson and multiple artists, featuring a spin-off team of Earth's Mightiest Heroes led by Hawkeye.

Not only does the team have their first encounter with Jeff, who quickly becomes their mascot of sorts, but they also run afoul of villains such as BRODOK, a hunky clone of MODOK with a buff body to go with his big ol' noggin. It's a delightfully entertaining read and an easy breezy entry into a different side of the Marvel Universe for fans of the silly - but still exciting - bits of Marvel Rivals.

Buy West Coast Avengers on Amazon

King in Black

The symbiote homeworld of Klyntar is the most cosmically creepy setting in Marvel Rivals, with its shifting, organic walls and mountains of symbiotic slime, and a story that involves the Guardians of the Galaxy and Eddie Brock dealing with the absence of Knull, the so-called King in Black. And, of course, Knull and his reign as the lord of the symbiotes are taken straight from comics.

The 2020 comic event King in Black by writer Donny Cates and artist Ryan Stegman brings Knull and his symbiote monsters to Earth on a mission of conquest, with Eddie Brock leading Marvel's most powerful heroes in the resistance against him. The story redefined the Venom mythos forever, and even provided inspiration for the recent film Venom: The Last Dance (check out our Venom: The Last Dance review for more info on that).

Buy King in Black on Amazon

Civil War

Marvel Rivals is all about the clash of hero against hero. While there are certainly villains in the game (like the notoriously deadly Hela), top Marvel heroes like Captain America and Iron Man form the core of the team's extensive roster of characters. And when it comes to Marvel heroes squaring off against each other, there's no bigger story than 2006's Civil War, in which the aforementioned Steve Rogers and Tony Stark find themselves on opposite sides of an ideological conflict that eventually leads to blows.

The concept is familiar to Marvel fans at this point, with the film Captain America: Civil War taking its cues from the now classic comic event. But there's nothing like digging into the original comic story itself, which is even bigger than the movie it inspires. Centered around numerous Marvel heroes picking sides in the fight, recent Marvel Rivals additions Mister Fantastic and the Invisible Woman even find themselves on opposing sides. It's an intense and important chapter in Marvel history. And of course, if you're in the mood for the MCU after reading it, you can check out our Marvel Cinematic Universe timeline, and our guide to watching all the Marvel movies and shows in order.

Buy Civil War on Amazon

Secret Wars (2015)

When it comes to stories of Marvel's Multiverse colliding, there are none bigger or more bombastic than 2015's Secret Wars by writer Jonathan Hickman and artist Esad Ribić, which takes its name from the original 1985 Marvel event. In the modern version, Doctor Doom manages to save the Multiverse from destruction by recombining pieces of it into a totally new realm called Battleworld - over which he holds omnipotent power.

Pieces of Secret Wars have already made it into Marvel Rivals, including Captain America's Gladiator skin, taken directly from one of the series' tie-in comics, so it's safe to say the story is an inspiration to say the least. And for fans of the game, it's sure to hold more than its share of thrills as Doom is opposed by Reed Richards and the Fantastic Four, as well as a Multiversal collection of heroes and villains, all leading to the entire reality of Marvel Comics being rebuilt from the ground up. Secret Wars will also be the inspiration for the upcoming Avengers: Secret Wars film.

Buy Secret Wars on Amazon

Avengers Forever

Marvel Rivals season 0 set the stakes of the game as revolving around two warring versions of Doctor Doom, each enlisting Marvel heroes and villains and their variants from across the Multiverse to do battle for their opposing sides. And though it's not the most well-known of all the stories on this list, few comic events capture that energy the same way as writer Kurt Busiek and artist Carlos Pacheco's late '90s masterpiece, Avengers Forever.

In Avengers Forever, Kang the Conqueror goes to war with his variant, Immortus, who enlists a collection of Marvel heroes from across multiple eras to fight against his conquering doppelganger with the fate of the timestream hanging in the balance. As a bonus, the 2021 title Avengers Forever serves as a spiritual sequel, with a massive team of Avengers from different timelines coming together to fight Doctor Doom's Multiversal Masters of Evil.

Buy Avengers Forever on Amazon

So far, NetEase in general has been pretty hands-off when it comes to balance in Marvel Rivals - although it did get its first balance patch with Season 1 - and that approach very much extends to the game's lovable but also very hateable anti-hero, Jeff the Shark. If you've played Marvel Rivals for any length of time, you're familiar with the uniquely frustrating and humiliating experience that is being sucked up by Jeff's ult and spat off the side of a cliff.

If you haven't played Marvel Rivals, well, Jeff is a big dumb shark with a stupid cute smile that can occasionally dive beneath the surface of the map and then resurface and swallow enemies whole. Any Jeff worth their saltwater will then swim over to the edge of the map and spit those enemies out to their swift and demoralizing deaths. It's a brutal move even by the standards of ultimates, and it sounds like NetEase doesn't have any plans to tone it down.

Asked by Metro if there are any plans for a Jeff the Shark ultimate nerf, game director Guangyun Chen dodged the question and instead offered up some advice.

"We actually have an interesting tip for how to avoid Jeff’s ultimate," Chens aid. "Make sure you keep your formation spread out and as soon as you hear Jeff saying 'Nom, Nom, Nom' before he unleashes the ultimate, you want to scatter away. And don't hesitate to use your Mobility skills if you need to.

"And, if you have a teammate or two who unfortunately gets swallowed by Jeff, and you've also done a good job spreading out your whole team beforehand, it means that only a few teammates will get caught.

"So, in that case, there's still a chance to take him down and rescue your buddy before he drags them to the end of the map. It's all about that teamwork and timing. Hitting all these specific timings will really help turn the tide."

Basically, just keep your distance from Jeff the Shark's gaping maw and you should be good. Thanks, boss.

I wish I had better advice for dealing with Jeff, but frankly, as an Iron Man main who primarily kites people from a distance and then bombs 'em with an ult every few minutes and doesn't pay enough attention to what my team's doing (yes, I'm the problem), I'm mostly immune to Jeff's tricks. But yeah, uh, running away will usually work.

Marvel Rivals will get new heroes every 6 weeks, game director says.

Speaking to the Metro, game director Guangyun Chen says the seasonal model for Marvel Rivals is to roll out "fresh seasonal stories, new maps, and new heroes," but there's more to be gleaned. While each season lasts three months, they'll be split in half, and for every half of the season, NetEase wants to introduce a new hero.

"We just eventually want to continue to enhance the experience, and, you know, keep everyone excited in our community," Chen says.

Keeping up a cadence of a new hero every six weeks seems like a tall order, though NetEase has plenty of material to draw on given Marvel's back catalog. That said, as per our guide for Marvel Rivals upcoming characters, the plan is already in motion. Season 1 kicked off by introducing Mister Fantastic and the Invisible Woman, while The Thing and the Human Torch will have to sit on the bench until the season's halfway point. It's likely we won't always get four new heroes a season, though a minimum of two is still a decent shift.

Although he acknowledges the community feedback, Chen doesn't confirm if a balance between Duelists, Vanguards, and Strategists will level out after introducing so many heroes.

"Our choice of heroes will be guided by the overall gameplay experience or theme that we want to create for each season," he says. "So it’ll revolve around the season, and right now, at post-launch, we have eight Vanguards and seven Strategists at launch. The team believes that it gives the players a solid variety for tactical match-ups or team composition. Having more Duelists at the moment will definitely enhance the Duelist experience, letting players dive a little bit deeper into that aspect.

"So lastly, big shout out to our community, as we’ve seen a lot of feedback as we look ahead to future seasons, starting with Season One, we would definitely keep this in mind when introducing new heroes, and we would make want to make sure that everyone feels heard and excited."

Unlike Overwatch, Marvel Rivals boss insists, "We believe no role queue will lead to a richer gaming experience for everyone."

Although the Marvel Rivals devs "wanted to move away" from its Duelist, Vanguard, and Strategist roles being traditional DPS, Tank, and Support roles with different names, ultimately, teams still have to find a balance with what characters they pick if they want to fight effectively. However, simply due to the fact that there are so many Duelist heroes, a lot of people want to play as Duelists, which quickly ignited the debate within the fanbase over whether imposing role limits of some sort might be a good idea.

Creative director Guangyun 'Guangguang' Chen previously spoke out about this, noting that – as of December, at least – the team was "not considering a role queue," with the overall goal being "to offer a wider variety of team composition through team-up skills and their own designs," and not limit players. Chen has now doubled down on this sentiment in an interview with Metro, acknowledging that "the community is discussing role lock and role queue," but "At its core, it's really about the game balance."

Chen reiterates that the team wants to offer "more line-up or more team comp possibilities through our hero design and our team-up mechanic. So, we'll be taking a little bit more of a Marvel-inspired approach." He adds: "It's all about giving the players the freedom to experiment and find their unique strategies, as we've seen in many games and streams. Post-launch, people have been exploring an indefinite amount of team compositions, and we're excited about what's coming, we believe no role queue will lead to a richer gaming experience for everyone."

Overwatch also launched with no role queue – it actually took over three years for it to be added. For now though, it seems like Marvel Rivals is steering well clear of this path, and with its popularity so far, that move clearly isn't detrimental. 

For more games like Marvel Rivals, be sure to check out our roundup of the best online games you can play right now.

I'm still getting the hang of NetEase's Overwatch-like hero shooter, so yes, the meta totally escapes me. But with my equally inexperienced friend chatting to me over comms, laughing at the mayhem before us, I've discovered that Rivals can actually be pretty chill if you roll your eyes, lean into its absurdity, and try to be the kind of player you'd hope to play with.

Squad up

Maybe it's because I play in quick bursts rather than a marathon, but there's loads to love about Rivals when you're not being griefed by teammates and semi-pro enemies alike. It's colorful, it's fast-paced, and you have very little time to be frustrated about dying (or being "knocked out," apologies) because you'll respawn in about five seconds. All of these elements factor into how much fun Marvel Rivals is when simply used as a digital hangout space.

That's not to say I don't pull my weight. I certainly do my best in every 6v6 mission, and even if I don't get as many final hits as others, I'm certain most of my teammates are thankful for Rocket Raccoon's plentiful healing bubbles. While playing the game, I keep a watchful eye on all my fellow players' health bars – not just my voice comm buddy's – to make sure none of them feel excluded from our little twosome. But between my attentive healing duties and shooting the shit with my friend, I immediately notice when we are playing with a crew of solo queuers.

I've encountered these brave souls in the past, most often in Dead by Daylight: gamers who set out on a mission to play online multiplayer games totally on their own, sometimes able to put in the work as a teammate, but most often, they're just out for themselves. The notion of soloing a game like Marvel Rivals is a baffling one to me. You can play a pretty selfish Dead by Daylight game and still not come across as actively ruining another's experience, but watching four solo Duelists march headfirst into enemy territory is another level of recklessness.

Seeing so many of these instances has me thinking over all the reasons people might play an online multiplayer game. Is it to feed your competitive streak? Are you like me and just want to hang out with far-flung friends? Or maybe you're driven by the singular goal of ruining everyone else's nice time and pumping your own score sky high, teamwork a total afterthought?

I think the lack of consistency behind player intentions is a big reason why I've never been much of an online gamer. With the exception of Dead by Daylight, Phasmophobia, and a brief stint with Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, I much prefer to play single player games and avoid the toxicity altogether. That said, I'm a lot more forgiving of Marvel Rivals than I am of many other hero shooters. This could be down to the novelty factor, with it having only launched a month ago, but I think I'm just loving how totally unserious the game is at its very core. It's about comic book characters playing capture-the-flag, after all; why wouldn't I use Marvel Rivals as my own personal hangout zone, solo queue martyrs and tunneling tanks be damned?

I have no idea how long I'll stick around as a filthy Rivals casual, but for the time being, I think I'll make myself at home. It's a refreshingly silly switch-up from my usual fare, which mostly consists of the best horror games or the sweeping narratives of Cyberpunk 2077 and Red Dead Redemption 2. Marvel Rivals is showing me a new way to play and enjoy video games. And you know what? I'm grateful for it, chaotic bully squads and all.

Check out the best shooters to play next, from Valorant to Counter-Strike.

It's been a wild first season for Marvel Rivals so far, to say the least. Between its record-high player count and the addition of new characters like Mister Fantastic, a lot has been going on - but it hasn't all been positive. The fresh season also marked the implementation of a ban on mods following various custom anime-themed skins and the recent Trump and Biden debacle on Nexus. Considering the developers' point of view, the ban is unsurprising.

As dev Del Walker explained, there's a plethora of reasons behind the mod ban - the potential to cheat, NSFW or political mods, and possible legal problems since "lots of mods infringe on copyrighted designs or assets." None of this has stopped fans from continuing to produce and download mods, however. As one player writes in a post alongside a clip showcasing a new custom One Piece skin, "Modding Marvel Rivals lives on."

It lives on indeed, despite needing "extra steps to pull off" - Nexus Mods' "new this week" tab under the website's Marvel Rivals page proves as much. Over 200 new mods have dropped just this past week alone despite NetEase's ban, many of which include custom skins. There are all flavors of themed downloads drawing from other popular media now, too, whether it be colorful League of Legends champion or God of War skins.

Fans seem to be well aware of the ban and how to circumvent it as well, with many of the newer mods' descriptions proclaiming "full compatibility" with Marvel Rivals' first season and its accompanying patch. There's no telling what the future has in store for modders or how and whether or not NetEase will crack down once again, but one thing is likely for certain - as long as there's an active community, mods are sure to be found.

Check out some great new games coming this year and beyond for even more to look forward to.

On Twitter, one loyal Helldiver directly asks Pilestedt if the dev team is involved "to ensure the [film] stays faithful to the games," to which the studio's chief creative officer admits he's "been dodging this question" up until now. Even now, he doesn't appear to have a totally concrete answer for us: "The short answer is yes. The long answer is that we'll see."

So, what does that mean? Based on the rest of his reply, it sounds like the devs might have some involvement, but ultimately not so much that they'd be able to have the "final say" on big decisions. "We are not Hollywood people, and we don't know what it takes to make a movie," he explains. "And therefore we don't, and shouldn't, have final say."

With that in mind, it doesn't sound like Arrowhead itself will necessarily be able to dig its heels in to make sure the movie stays faithful to its source material, as the fan who asked the question in the first place was hoping. Of course, this might not be a problem in the first place, but right now details are so light on the ground that it's impossible to know. 

For now, all we do know is that it's happening, and that it's a collaboration between Sony Pictures and Sony Productions. As for the plot, cast, release date, or literally anything else, that's all a mystery. Who knows, perhaps it could even include the legendary fight to liberate Malevelon Creek?

Helldivers 2 director says the reason saluting the flag makes it go faster is that all the devs did it anyway, "so one of the coders added it as an Easter egg."

Marvel Rivals recently ushered in its first season, adding in some Fantastic Four characters and reaching record player peaks while doing so, but its Season One also bought in a ban for the unofficial skins players had made. These included a few anime skins and things like the banned Donald Trump and Joe Biden ones that caused a hullabaloo last week, among others. And with so many online games taking a similar route, developer Del Walker decided to chime in on 'why' based on his experiences working at Rocksteady, Sega, and more.

"After working on multiple live service games, these are the reasons I was told mods must unfortunately be banned," Walker recently tweeted, before listing eight potential reasons. Exploits are one factor. "Some mods can make an enemy easier to see... or make you harder to see" - even in a game like Marvel Rivals, where custom skins will only show up for the player using them, making yourself invisible would theoretically give you a better field of view than your opponents.

Other reasons might include server strain since mods aren't "optimized" and can often do "some weird s***" the developers weren't prepared for, NSFW mods or political mods could cause damage to the brand, and legal stuff since "lots of mods infringe on copyrighted designs or assets." There's also the worry that modders might make custom skins that the developers were planning to add in a future battle pass or store update, and "studios ain't about to let you mess with their income."

Official Marvel Rivals stats show Mantis dominates, Magik is a sleeper hit, everyone loves Jeff even if he sucks, and Black Widow is in the dumpster. 

"Eternal night has fallen over Manhattan and the entire Earth has been affected!" Marvel Rivals says in a Twitter post. "The first chapter of the Midnight Features Season Event has arrived! Join the heroes under the veil of darkness to unravel the full picture, complete missions and claim your rewards!"  

"Need Reed more than air," one fan replied, ignoring the proud call to arms and instead zeroing in on the graphic Marvel Rivals used of the, I'll note, incredibly bendy Reed Richards looking like a brooding lumberjack who's very, very disappointed in you. 

Anyway, "make sure not to miss the action and complete all missions to get additional milestone rewards!" Marvel Rivals continues. Midnight Features' first chapter will only be available to play until February 7, which partially accounts for why Marvel Rivals suddenly seems to be setting a new player record every few minutes. 

But it's also true that Marvel Rivals has simply been consistently, wildly popular in the month since its release, typically hovering around 400,000 concurrent players. 

The first half of its Season 1 ups the ante by adding Reed – Mister Fantastic – and Sue Storm, or Invisible Woman, who has her own share of vocal admirers, as all of the game's superheroes try to fend off Dracula. If Marvel Rivals' ascending playerbase is any indication, I'd say that there are enough people who are up to the challenge. 

As Marvel Rivals booms, a former Overwatch pro is begging players to "let me move on" from the C9 meme.

C9 is short for Cloud9, an esports brand that operates teams in a variety of games. In 2019, Cloud9 played an infamous pro Overwatch match in which the entire team left the objective behind to win a fight with their opponents in overtime - leaving the point undefended and losing the match. They proceed to do this multiple times, and ever since then, abandoning a winnable objective to go unnecessarily shoot people has been known as pulling a C9 in Overwatch circles.

Lucas 'Mendo' Håkansson was one of Cloud9's Overwatch players at the time, and the success of Marvel Rivals means a whole new community is learning about all this. "MARVEL RIVALS BOOMING IN POPULARITY MEANS A TON OF NEW PLAYERS ARE LEARNING WHAT A "C9" [IS] AND THAT I CREATED IT," Mendo says on Twitter (via Polygon). "LET ME MOVE ON PLEASEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE"

Cloud9's official account responded to say "forever in the history." Mendo agreed that "this is our legacy."

Marvel Rivals is, indeed, booming. The hero shooter launched as one of the biggest games in Steam history, and the player counts have only gotten higher since the launch of Season 1 - plus that's not even including console players. Whether it manages to eclipse Overwatch's legacy in the long run remains to be seen, but one thing's for sure: C9 lives forever.

Here's everything you need to know about the Marvel Rivals Battle Pass.

How much does the Marvel Rivals Battle Pass cost?

Purchasing the Marvel Rivals Luxury Battle Pass to access all of the available rewards costs 990 Lattice, and you can buy 1,000 Lattice for $9.99 / £7.99 from the in-game store, so that price is basically interchangeable. There is also the option to purchase an upgraded Luxury Battle Pass that gives you 2,800 Chrono Tokens immediately and boosts your Chrono Token acquisition by 20% for the whole season, which is priced at 2,100 Lattice, with 2,180 Lattice costing $19.99 / £15.99 – so basically double the initial investment.

If don't want to spend any money, there are still plenty of rewards you can unlock for free in the Marvel Rivals Battle Pass, and I have details on all of those further down this guide.

How to claim rewards from the Marvel Rivals Battle Pass

To claim rewards from the Marvel Rivals Battle Pass you need to spend Chrono Tokens, whether you're on the free or Luxury pass. There are two ways to acquire these. The first is by completing assignments found on the Missions tab, including Daily Missions and Challenges, plus certain Event Missions, and you'll see the magenta Chrono Tokens icon against them stating how many you'll receive for completion. The other method is to directly exchange Lattice for Chrono Tokens, but this can become very expensive so I would not recommend it unless there's a reward you're desperate for and can't reach via progress alone.

Most rewards in the Battle Pass cost 200 Chrono Tokens, though this rises to 400 for costumes. Additionally, to unlock further pages of the pass you need to cumulatively earn 1,200 Chrono Tokens per page – note that this is the total earned during the season rather than your current balance, so it doesn't take into account any tokens that you've already spent on unlocking rewards. You can check this total at any time, by highlighting the Chrono Tokens icon on the top bar of the Battle Pass screen and looking for the Redemption Account balance, and then adding that to your current balance.

At the end of the season you can carry over unspent Chrono Tokens, but only up to the value of your Redemption Account balance. For example, if your Redemption Account balance is 4,000 Chrono Tokens as that is how many you've spent during the season, but you still have 5,000 unspent Chrono Tokens remaining, then only 4,000 can be carried over to the next season's Battle Pass.

All Marvel Rivals Battle Pass rewards for Season 1

These are all of the rewards that can be claimed through the Season 1 Marvel Rivals Battle Pass, with those exclusive to the Luxury Battle Pass marked in bold, along with their associated Chrono Tokens cost:

• Page 1
  • All-Butcher costume - Loki (free)
  • Heed My Call emote - Loki (200 CT)
  • All-Butcher spray (200 CT)
  • Mister Fantastic nameplate (200 CT)
  • All-Butcher nameplate (200 CT)
  • End of Everything MVP - Loki (200 CT)
  • Blood Moon Knight costume - Moon Night (400 CT)
• Page 2 (obtain 1,200 CT in total to unlock)
  • Invisible Woman nameplate (200 CT)
  • Rocket Racoon Emblem spray (200 CT)
  • Bounty Hunter spray (200 CT)
  • Wanted Raccoon MVP - Rocket Raccoon (200 CT)
  • Bounty Hunter nameplate (200 CT)
  • 100 Lattice (200 CT)
  • Bounty Hunter costume - Rocket Raccoon (400 CT)
• Page 3 (obtain 2,400 CT in total to unlock)
  • Blue Tarantula costume - Peni Parker (400 CT)
  • Moon Knight Emblem spray (200 CT)
  • Loki Emblem spray (200 CT)
  • Peni Parker Emblem spray (200 CT)
  • 100 Units (200 CT)
  • Human Torch nameplate (200 CT)
  • 100 Lattice (200 CT)
• Page 4 (obtain 3,600 CT in total to unlock)
  • Scarlett Witch Emblem spray (200 CT)
  • King Magnus nameplate (200 CT)
  • Magento Emblem spray (200 CT)
  • For All Mutants MVP - Magneto (200 CT)
  • Past No More emote - Magneto (200 CT)
  • King Magnus spray (200 CT)
  • King Magnus costume - Magneto (400 CT)
• Page 5 (obtain 4,800 CT in total to unlock)
  • 100 Lattice (200 CT)
  • Darkhold collectable (200 CT)
  • 100 Units (200 CT)
  • Namor Emblem spray (200 CT)
  • The Thing nameplate (200 CT)
  • 100 Units (200 CT)
  • Savage Sub-Mariner costume - Namor (400 CT)
• Page 6 (obtain 6,000 CT in total to unlock)
  • Eternal Night Falls gallery card (free)
• Page 7 (obtain 7,200 CT in total to unlock)
  • 100 Units (200 CT)
  • Iron Man Emblem spray (200 CT)
  • Blood Edge Armor spray (200 CT)
  • Subway Rat Blaster emote - Iron Man (200 CT)
  • Cleansing Edge MVP - Iron Man (200 CT)
  • Blood Edge Armor nameplate (200 CT)
  • Blood Edge Armor costume - Iron Man (400 CT)
• Page 8 (obtain 8,400 CT in total to unlock)
  • Innocence Reborn emote - Adam Warlock (200 CT)
  • Blood Soul spray (200 CT)
  • Adam Warlock Emblem spray (200 CT)
  • 100 Lattice (200 CT)
  • Blood Soul nameplate (200 CT)
  • Cut Divine Ties MVP - Adam Warlock (200 CT)
  • Blood Soul costume - Adam Warlock (400 CT)
• Page 9 (obtain 9,600 CT in total to unlock)
  • Emporium Matron costume - Scarlet Witch (400 CT)
  • Flamenco emote - Scarlet Witch (200 CT)
  • 100 Units (200 CT)
  • Emporium Matron spray (200 CT)
  • Emporium Matron nameplate (200 CT)
  • Making An Entrance MVP - Scarlet Witch (200 CT)
  • 100 Lattice (200 CT)
• Page 10 (obtain 10,800 CT in total to unlock)
  • 100 Lattice (200 CT)
  • 100 Units (200 CT)
  • Hone Claws emote - Wolverine (200 CT)
  • Blood Berserker spray (200 CT)
  • Blood Berserker nameplate (200 CT)
  • Blood Barrage MVP - Wolverine (200 CT)
  • Blood Berserker costume - Wolverine (400 CT)
• Page 11 (obtain 12,000 CT in total to unlock)
  • At Your Service gallery card (free)

Note that if you purchase the Marvel Rivals Luxury Battle Pass, then the above Season 1 rewards will always remain available to unlock during future seasons and can be accessed through the Reality Link Point. However, if you're using the free Battle Pass then any unclaimed rewards will disappear when the season ends and become inaccessible.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

All Invisible Woman abilities in Marvel Rivals

The Invisible Woman has a wide range of abilities and moves in Marvel Rivals, with both her invisibility and force fields supporting her and other players. When she was still one of the we wondered what she'd be capable of, but now we know, and we'll lay out all her powers and moves below, as well as how best to use them.

• Orb Projection (R2/RT): Sue Storm's main attack and healing power, these projectiles fly out and then back to Sue once they reach their maximum range of 30m or hit a solid object, and she can fire 10 before needing to reload. The orbs pierce all characters dealing a small amount of damage per hit on an enemy and a larger amount of healing per hit for an ally - a good, basic ability.
• Psionic Vortex (L1/LB): Fire out a projectile that expands into a singularity upon contact with an object or enemy or when the ability button is pressed a second time. The vortex pulls in nearby enemies and rapidly deals small ticks of damage. Not a huge deal in terms of damage or reach, but can pin foes down for a follow-up attack.
• Force Physics (R1/RB): Switch to this power with R1/RB, then choose to either perform a telekinetic shove that pushes all enemies in a line away from you (R2/RT), or to drag them towards you instead (L2/LT). A good control ability, the main function of which is to clear distance between you and dangerous foes or punish those that get too close with no escape options.
• Agile Strike (R3/RS): Sue Storm's melee is a three-hit combo, the last of which pushes enemies ahead of you back. Sue's no melee fighter, so like Force Physics, this strike helps you get out of danger range for certain characters.
• Veiled Step (X/A): Sue's double jump launches her forward in a set arc while also triggering her invisibility. When in danger, this is mainly how you escape.
• Guardian Shield (L2/LT): Deploy a static shield in front of an ally that blocks damage and grants healing over time to anyone standing behind it. While the shield is unbroken, it can be moved around between allies freely but it goes on cooldown when broken or when manually withdrawn. The shield also slows enemies that walk through it.
• PASSIVE: Covert Advance: If Sue goes several seconds without attacking or using abilities, she turns invisible and gains health regeneration. This lasts until she attacks, uses a power, or takes damage.
• TEAM UP: Fantasti-Force: The Invisible Woman grants Marvel Rivals Mister Fantastic the ability to trigger a shield and bonus health.
• ULTIMATE: Invisible Boundary (L3+R3/LS+RS): Create a large, cylindrical volume that makes all allies within invisble to the enemy and provides substantial healing. Enemies that enter the zone can see allies within it but not outside of it and are briefly slowed. It's a great advantage for teams pushing aggressively for an attack or staying put to defend.

How to play Invisible Woman in Marvel Rivals

The Invisible Woman in Marvel Rivals is all about supporting the other Marvel Rivals characters from stealth, as well as exercising some battlefield control. As a Strategist with low health, you don't want to be near the middle of combat if you can avoid it - instead, use stealth to support your allies from around the edges, staying behind your tanks and using your battlefield powers to pin enemies down for your team to deal with. Your allies themselves should feel more free to attack when you heal and shield them accordingly.

One good combo is Force Physics into Psionic Vortex, using the first to move enemies somewhere dangerous or away from a mission objective, then pinning them in place with the Vortex. At this point you can launch shots into them or let your team deal with them while you hold back and let your invisibility kick in.

Speaking of which, don't be afraid to retreat. Sue's stealth and passive regen means that you should play the character as a kind of support assassin - you appear, you damage, heal and manipulate accordingly, then vanish away and let yourself reposition.

Find out all the different Marvel Rivals codes for free bonus skins and loot right here! And if you want to know who else might be joining Sue Storm in the Strategist category, you can learn about all the Marvel Rivals upcoming characters.

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All Mister Fantastic abilities in Marvel Rivals

Below are all Mister Fantastic's abilities in Marvel Rivals, as well as how best to use them in combat to help you disrupt the enemy and get KOs:

• Stretch Punch (R2/RT): Standard attack, a long range punch that deals respectable damage at a slower rate. However, there are no ammo limitations or reloads, so you can keep up a constant barrage.
• Reflexive Rubber (R1/RB): Briefly absorb up to 275 damage from all sources, then launch it back in the direction of your reticule. Really good at countering snipers like Hawkeye and Black Widow, especially if you're only popping your head out for a moment.
• Flexible Elongation (L1/LB): Pick an enemy or ally and dash towards them with a shield on you. If you hit an enemy they take damage, and if you hit an ally you give them a shield. A good way to close distance, but not especially powerful as an attack.
• Distended Grip (L2/LT): Entangle an enemy with one arm, then either drag them towards you or grab another enemy to slam them together in midair. Not hugely damaging, but a good crowd control option.
• PASSIVE: Elastic Strength: All abilities generate "Elasticity", measured on your reticule. Elasticity increases melee damage, and reaching 100 Elasticity briefly grants you massive amounts of Shield and an extreme temporary damage buff, though increases your size. For about five seconds, you'll go from being a Duelist to a Vanguard.
• TEAM UP: Wedded Harmony (Circle/B): When paired with the Invisible Woman in Marvel Rivals, she can grant Mister Fantastic a temporary shield that provides constant bonus health and damage resistance.
• ULTIMATE: Brainiac Bounce (L3+R3/LD+RS): Leap into the air and hit the ground dealing area-of-effect damage and slowing enemies. If you damage somebody, you can bounce again up to six times, with each bounce improving the damage and slowing effect per hit, so it's a good way to thin out enemy groups or wear down slower tanks.

How to play Mister Fantastic in Marvel Rivals

Mister Fantastic is one of the odder Marvel Rivals characters, a mix of melee DPS, crowd control, and tanking abilities. He has 350 health, which is a lot for a Duelist, but the fact that his Reflexive Rubber ability temporarily makes him immune to all damage, and that all his abilities build up to his Elastic Strength passive, means he has incredible survivability. This can be improved even more with his Wedded Harmony Marvel Rival Team Up with Invisible Woman, allowing Reed Richards to survive when in danger on the frontlines.

The best way to play Mister Fantastic is ultimately to play from a medium range distance, using your reach to hurt enemies, separate them from the group and build Elasticity. You're not the most mobile of characters, so standing behind a tank and throwing punches over their shoulders is a healthy option, throwing foes around to break up groups or pull in the weaker ones with Distended Grip.

You can't stay too far away though, as both your best powers - Elastic Strength and your Brainiac Bounce ultimate - are great for melee. These are your moments to dash forward (ideally with Flexible Elongation) and tear through the enemy team, especially if they're all grouped together.

Ultimately, Mister Fantastic's range, limited mobility and crowd control make him feel like a character who will thrive more in the teams trying to stop a payload being moved, rather than on the aggressive team.

Wondering when the Human Torch and the Thing will be joining the fray? We've got all Marvel Rivals upcoming characters listed here!

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