In the recent months, there has been a new obsession taking over high school students all over the world. Teenagers (and many adults) are waiting for school to be over, or their shift to end, just to play the newest craze: Marvel Rivals.
Released in 2024, Marvel Rivals is a free to play third person hero shooter game.This game is third person which means that the camera is positioned behind the player, and hero shooter meaning players pick the character they want to play as for the match, and each character has their own unique playstyle and abilities. There are currently 37 characters that have been announced, but many more are on their way. Every character is someone from Marvel Comics, some are well known, and others are more obscure.
The game has taken off ever since the original release date, retaining a staggering 79,000 concurrent players, even 4 months after release. Marvel Rivals reached 10 million players worldwide within 72 hours of its release and peaked at 480,990 concurrent players in Dec, 2024.
Why is this game so popular?
Owen Greer (11) is an avid Marvel Rivals player.
“I probably play about five days a week,” Greer said “The character designs are really cool, and the gameplay can be difficult sometimes which makes it fun. Every game feels different and there’s a lot of interesting gameplay choices like team ups.”
Greer’s favorite character to play is Mr. Fantastic.
Patrick Emery (11) also plays Marvel Rivals, though not as often.
“I don’t have a PS5, I have to use my brother’s, so I play probably about twice a week,” Emery said.
When asked why he thinks the game is so popular, he notes that it could be because it replicas other games.
“It’s a really common formula you see in a lot of games, and hero shooters have been real big since overwatch came out,” Emery said. “Overwatch has kind of been on a decline over the past couple years so I really think people were just waiting for something new.” Emery says his favorite thing about the game is “just playing with my friends to be honest.”
Emery’s favorite character to play is Star-lord.
New and interesting ideas within a sea of the same game over and over again has made Marvel Rivals skyrocket into popularity, and it seems that it’s here to stay, with many updates on the way.
