Jul 26, 2025
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The unrivaled popularity of Overwatch 2 now faces a fresh challenge. The hero-shooter gaming genre is comparatively less crowded, and since Overwatch 2 was released in 2023, it has become the benchmark for other hero-shooter games to follow. This unchallenged reign got new competition when NetEase Games launched its 2024 hero shooter game Marvel Rivals.
From the very beginning, the success of Marvel Rivals rightly indicated that Overwatch 2 has a potent rival who surpassed the former’s all-time peak of 75,361 concurrent players on Steam and created a new peak of 644,269 players. Thus, the war started between these two games.
Marvel Rivals often brings new content to maintain its popularity, and a few days back, this game teased its latest limited-time football game mode called Clash of Dancing Lion through the Spring Festival trailer. This game mode almost instantly reminds players about one Overwatch 2 game mode, named Lucioball.
A closer look at the game mode revealed that both game modes are kind of similar. Both are 3v3 modes with a lot of similar gameplay elements. Anyway, there are different features also available to make these two modes distinct from each other.
While the hero-shooter fans are extremely excited about Marvel Rivals’ new game mode, Overwatch 2 suddenly announced a groundbreaking PvP mode to survive this increasing competition. Blizzard wants to attract the attention of gamers toward a Spotlight event going to happen on February 12.
In the latest blog post, it mentioned, “In 2025, Overwatch 2 is going to be packed with groundbreaking changes to the PvP experience that will be unlike anything you’ve seen before.”
Recently, Blizzard has been experimenting with several game modes to make the PvP better. The upcoming event is reportedly bringing new heroes. Well, it’s just a few days wait to know what’s going to come.
The hero-shooting genre has been going through ups and downs recently. Initially, there was no game to take as an example. At that point, Blizzard brought Overwatch to set an example. Next came Overwatch 2 to mark the standard higher. However, with the release of Marvel Rivals, NetEase Games has proved that it can be taken to another height.
Since Marvel Rivals was launched, this game has received the tag of Overwatch killer. Well, that’s controversial, but one thing is for sure: NetEase Games has done its homework properly and covered all the aspects that Blizzard missed in the Overwatch series.
While Blizzard initially posed no restrictions on using heroes, it soon changed into playing with one hero. Even the 6v6 mode was decreased to 5v5, where in fact a lot of tanks don’t fit properly. There were multiple other issues that Blizzard addressed through updates, but that didn’t fix everything.
Finally, the cancellation of the long-awaited PvE mode has made things more complicated for Blizzard. Overwatch 2 was launched with PvP elements, but players hoped to get PvE after some time. However, Blizzard canceled the PvE, disappointing the entire fanbase.
This is no wonder that NetEase Games has studied the competitor well and designed the game in a way that it has all the elements that Overwatch 2 should have added a long time ago. While Overwatch 2 has reduced the team to 5v5, Marvel Rivals worked on balancing the team and introduced 6v6 gameplay. This has reduced the pressure on tank characters to carry the team.
Another thing that worked for Marvel Rivals is the introduction to iconic Marvel characters. While Spider-Man, Hulk, Groot, Rocket Raccoon, Loki, and other renowned characters are already in the game, a smooth introduction of Deadpool, Ant-Man, and even Daredevil is possible.
Now, if one talks about the story, Overwatch 2’s story is indeed impressive, but Marvel Rivals revolves around the well-known locations of Marvel movies and tells the stories of Marvel, which is already popular among young gamers.
Finally, Marvel Rivals is surpassing Overwatch 2 in difficulty. Being a combat team-based game, the character abilities are spread evenly among all the character classes to make all the team members equally important in the game.
The fight is hard, but both games are doing well to survive in this increasingly challenging environment. Both games are enjoyable, and both possess unlimited potential to improve. It’s just that the developer team should take care of the lacking sections.
