Marvel Rivals’ Emma Frost, Ultron Should Spark a New Season…

Marvel Rivals’ Season 2, Hellfire Gala, is making a massive splash with its festive skins and considerable balance changes. Ultron’s leaked Marvel Rivals kit aside, it’s unknown exactly how influential he’ll be in S2.5. Meanwhile, all eyes are on Emma Frost as a tank with fairly unique telepathic abilities. No two seasons have been alike in Marvel Rivals thus far as NetEase has attempted to find its footing and also meet the demand of players, and the developer has decided for Season 3 and onward that it will abandon the concept of two characters released over a three-month period.

With subsequent seasons revealed to release a new character each month, it’ll be fascinating to see new characters adopted into the meta at such an alarming rate. Marvel Rivals could theoretically add any two characters it wants in any given season, too, and yet Hellfire Gala seems to present a neat formula that later seasons could follow for a greater pool of diversity regarding Marvel’s pantheon: one hero character and one villain character.

Marvel Rivals is Tripling Down on One Confusing Character Type

Marvel Rivals matches may get confusing once Emma Frost officially launches, especially if Dagger and Invisible Woman are also present.

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By Jackie Arias

A Hero is Only as Interesting as the Villain Who Challenges Them

The disparity between hero and villain characters available in Marvel Rivals has been acknowledged and apparent since launch. That’s not to say there are no villains on the roster, but the heroes far outweigh them still.

This isn’t a deal-breaker in a 6v6 hero shooter where characters go toe-to-toe regardless of how they align themselves morally, but even arbitrarily it is more interesting to have a game that honors and has playable ne’er-do-wells plucked from Marvel’s pantheon.

Plus, it’s neat to witness interactions between heroes and villains who may not interact with one another otherwise. Emma Frost and Ultron may not be a no-brainer of a pairing, for instance, and yet their debut in Marvel Rivals’ Hellfire Gala season marks the first time a season’s ‘villain’ is actually a playable character—with Doctor Doom and Dracula not becoming playable for Season 0 and Season 1, respectively—and that could create a dynamic pattern moving forward.

Marvel Rivals’ Future Seasons Could Get a Lot of Mileage Out of Hero/Villain Pairings

Like Emma Frost and Ultron in Marvel Rivals’ Hellfire Gala season, no future season would need to restrain itself to iconic hero/villain pairings (even labeling Emma Frost a ‘hero’ isn’t fully accurate, at least beyond Rivals’ distinct continuity). However, a season that introduces Daredevil alongside Bullseye could be sensational, especially with how arresting their encounters have been in Netflix and Disney’s Daredevil shows, pitting them against each other in the story’s lore and game-ending cutscenes.

This isn’t feasible long-term, though, because Marvel Rivals features so many popular Marvel heroes and hero teams, such as Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four. Therefore, if and when Doctor Doom ever becomes a playable character in Marvel Rivals, a season won’t be able to have a climactic introduction for him alongside the Fantastic Four since the latter is already fully playable in-game.

Likewise, any Spider-Man villain Marvel Rivals wishes to add later on won’t have the wall-crawler debuting by their side. Still, Electro, Kraven, or Lizard arriving alongside any other Marvel hero could still be fantastic and continue to demonstrate how prolific and significant Marvel’s villainous half is.

Not every hero character is fortunate enough to have a laundry list of arch-nemeses to defeat on a daily basis, but there are surely loads of characters who’d make for wonderful villain additions in Marvel Rivals between the likes of Mandarin, Taskmaster, and Carnage. Marvel Rivals obviously doesn’t seem concerned with potential roster characters dwindling as it will be releasing one every month soon, and thus it probably has a relatively confident selection of heroes and villains planned well into the future.

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