Marvel Rivals' Latest Hero Leaks Tell a Tale as Old as…

Marvel Rivals' third season kicked off earlier this month on July 11, and it has already provided players with plenty of new content. Many cosmetics have been added thanks to the new battle pass, the Milano Repair Logs event, and the Summer Special Event. Gameplay has also been shaken up with the addition of the Celestial Husk map, several new team-ups, and a new Duelist in the form of Phoenix. Though there are still plenty of updates to come for Season 3, players are already looking ahead to Marvel Rivals' next two seasons.

Leaks have been quite prevalent since Marvel Rivals first released last December. The most recent batch of leaks has given strong indications about what players can expect from upcoming content updates — specifically regarding Marvel Rivals' Season 4 and Season 5. Between leaked voice lines and season themes, players already have ideas as to who the game's next characters could be. However, if these recent leaks prove to be correct, they could foreshadow a major yet unsurprising issue for Marvel Rivals' future.

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By Matthew O’Dwyer

Three Leaked Characters and Their Impact on Marvel Rivals' Roster

After Blade releases in Season 3.5, Marvel Rivals will be receiving one new character each month going forward. This means that there are four more characters who have yet to be revealed that will release this year. Though they haven't been officially announced, fans already have a good idea of three such characters' identities.

According to prominent leaker X0X_Leak in a series of posts to X, Season 4 of Marvel Rivals will take the game's story to K'un-Lun, while Season 5 will be themed around love and romance. Since voice lines about Rogue and Gambit — one of the Marvel universe's most popular couples — leaked earlier in the year, it seems incredibly likely that Season 5 will be when they make their debut. For Season 4, fans are speculating that one of the characters will likely be Daredevil. Daredevil has long been rumored to come to the game, was teased with the recent Punisher Daredevil: Born Again skin, and would fit in given Season 4's supposed focus on martial arts. Many are also pointing to an upcoming lore card, which shows a defeated Hela being confronted by a shadowy figure in a horned mask.

The Most Likely Role for These Leaked Marvel Rivals Characters — and Why It Could be an Issue

Daredevil, Gambit, and Rogue have been three of the most requested characters in the Marvel Rivals community. That said, the timing of their addition could result in more frustration than excitement. Going off of the game's three character roles — Duelist, Strategist, and Vanguard — it seems extremely unlikely that Daredevil isn't a Duelist, based on his skillset. While there's a bit more flexibility with Rogue and Gambit, both are heavy hitters and seem much more suited to a DPS role than anything else. It's still unknown what the other Season 4 character will be at this point, but it's looking like three of the remaining four characters to be added after Season 3 could be Duelists.

Even if only half of the unannounced characters end up being Duelists, it still presents Marvel Rivals with a conundrum that is all too common in the hero shooter genre. Marvel Rivals' roster at launch had 7 Strategists, 8 Vanguards, and 18 Duelists. Since release, three of the seven characters that have been added have been Duelists. This means that when Blade releases next month — despite the Duelist role already having considerably more characters than the other two roles — half of the characters added since launch will be Duelists.

The Overabundance of DPS Characters in Hero Shooters

It's understandable as to why so many Duelists are in the game. Many Marvel heroes and villains naturally slot into that role. Plus, DPS characters are generally the most popular to play among the playerbase and the most straightforward to design for developers — hence while other hero shooters like Overwatch have gone through this same issue.

That said, many Marvel Rivals players have already been complaining about the amount of Duelist characters that have been added to the game. Strategist and Vanguard players want as many options as Duelist characters have. Every time a new Duelist is added, it highlights the lack of variety in the other classes and encourages players to switch off of supportive characters in order to try the shiny new damage dealer.

If Marvel Rivals is getting ready to add even more Duelists in a year that has already been over-saturated with them — especially after receiving two in a row in Season 3 — then negative sentiments and frustrating metas are sure to persist. Though the game has managed to avoid many of the issues that have plagued other games in the genre, it looks like this is one that Marvel Rivals will unfortunately run into.

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