Everything Coming In Marvel Rivals’ Fantastic Four-Focused Season
Marvel Rivals is entering its second season, confusingly named Season 1 because the first one was Season 0, and it’s bringing four new heroes to the game all at once. The Fantastic Four are joining the roster. Mister Fantastic and Invisible Woman will join on January 10, seemingly alongside a new map, a balance patch, and a battle pass. The other two will join in the latter half of the season. Developer NetEase is rolling out information on Season 1: Eternal Night Falls throughout the week, so we’ll be updating this post with new details as they come. Here’s everything we know so far about Marvel Rivals’ Fantastic Four-focused season.
The Fantastic Four join the fight
Headlining the season are the Fantastic Four, with Mister Fantastic, The Thing, Invisible Woman, and Human Torch all joining the roster. Mister Fantastic and Human Torch appear to be damage-dealing Duelists, with The Thing being a tanky Vanguard and Invisible Woman rounding out the team as a supporting Strategist. The first trailer for the season introduces all four heroes in a version of New York City plunged into an “eternal night” by Dracula. Marvel Rivals takes place in a multiverse-spanning battle between two versions of the Fantastic Four villain Doctor Doom, each fighting for control of all the timelines, and this season one of them has teamed up with Dracula, resulting in vampiric monsters overrunning NYC. Or, as NetEase’s official synopsis puts it:
Darkness engulfs New York as the Timestream Entanglement leaves Doctor Strange trapped in the Entangled Astral Plane, scattering the Darkhold pages. Dracula and Doctor Doom disrupt the moon’s orbit, plunging the city into eternal night and unleashing an army of vampiric creatures.
After the official announcement trailer, NetEase posted an 11-minute breakdown of its plans for Season 1. You can watch the full video below, or you can read on for the bullet points.
The season will include three new maps, all set within New York City: Sanctum Santorum, Midtown, and Central Park.
The season will last three months and will be divided in half, with each half lasting “six to seven weeks.” The first half will add Mister Fantastic and Invisible Woman to the roster and add the Midtown map to the rotation.
The Sanctum Santorum map will also be added in the first half, but will feature a new game mode called Doom Match. The description makes it sound like this mode will be a deathmatch-style battle. NetEase’s official description reads: “In this mode, 8 to 12 players will battle on a single map, each belonging to a different faction, with all factions being hostile to each other. Players earn points by knocking out enemies, and at the end of the match, the top 50% of players by default will be considered the winning side.”
Season 1's battle pass will include “double” the amount of rewards compared to Season 0, as it will last twice as long as the previous period. This will include 10 costumes and will cost 990 Lattice in-game currency.
While we don’t have full patch notes yet, NetEase says it plans to tweak a few key heroes in Season 1. Some pain points mentioned include nerfs for Hela and Hawkeye and buffs for Venom and Captain America. Wolverine, Storm, Cloak & Dagger, and Jeff will all be getting adjustments as well.
Competitive ranks will be reset in Season 1, and a new rank called Celestial will be added just above Grandmaster and below Eternity.
Marvel Rivals is also introducing some new options for the competitive sickos, including a new graphics mode that prioritizes a higher framerate, and mouse acceleration settings.
Alongside the season breakdown, NetEase released a trailer showcasing Mister Fantastic’s kit. While the elastic hero is categorized as a Duelist, a fair bit of his kit prioritizes survivability, crowd control, and protecting allies, so he could make a good tank in the right player’s hands.
When does Marvel Rivals’ Season 1 launch?
Marvel Rivals’ Season 1 will launch on January 10 at 1 a.m. Pacific Time/4 a.m. Eastern Time. While that’s the bulk of what’s coming this week, we still haven’t seen the full patch notes with all the balance changes.
