Marvel Rivals producer Danny Koo says it's not the time for original heroes, with the team having so many known characters lined up at least until season 8. Instead, NetEase Games is turning its attention to a more immediate challenge: helping players navigate an increasingly crowded roster.
As the roster grows rapidly with two heroes per season, the developer recognises that the real bottleneck isn't sourcing new characters but presenting them effectively. NetEase is most concerned about the UI, as with so many heroes and events it can sometimes be hard to navigate Marvel Rivals' interface.
According to Koo, the priority is UI optimisation, asking questions like "Who's your favourite heroes that you want to play, so you can have them at any time at your disposal?" and "What are new characters that you want to play?" with the answer changing every season.
The reasoning behind this strategic choice is straightforward. There are over 200 to 300 characters from the Marvel franchise that the Marvel Rivals team can choose from. Rather than exhaust the existing roster and turn to original creations, the development team is focused on depth and accessibility.
It's worth acknowledging that NetEase does have the greenlight from Marvel to create original heroes, similar to Luna Snow, who was first introduced in the Marvel universe via the mobile game Marvel Future Fight. But that possibility remains on the shelf. Koo explained they "have so many right now" in reference to existing characters, adding "It's not the time".
The game's success so far has been substantial. Marvel Rivals achieved a milestone of 20 million players within its first 10 days of launch in December 2024, and the title has become NetEase's title with the largest global audience to date, with over 40 million players.
That rapid growth has created operational demands. Each new hero added brings a whole host of issues for the development team to deal with, ranging from community reaction to hero selection to balancing them fairly against other characters, a situation that becomes more complex with every new hero. Beyond balance concerns, NetEase has recently dealt with the "Incentivised throwing epidemic" that saw bounties for streamers put up online to encourage players to sabotage games for cash, prompting the team to enact a "Victim Compensation Protocol".
Looking forward, the developers have ambitious plans. Marvel Games executive producer Danny Koo recently declared that "2025 was more of a warm-up period for us," noting that "Next year, we're going to have bigger plans. We're not going to slow down".
The strategy reflects a pragmatic approach to live service games: solve today's problems before creating tomorrow's. For Marvel Rivals, that means ensuring the experience remains intuitive even as the hero pool expands, rather than chasing originality for its own sake.