Who joins Marvel Rivals’ roster next will forever be an exciting question as players await new seasonal content. With a whopping 33 characters on Marvel Rivals’ launch roster, there are still countless Marvel characters who’d make for wonderful additions and a handful of affiliations that deserve to be fully represented. For example, the entire Fantastic Four has yet to appear, there are a handful of X-Men alumni who could make the cut and haven’t, and the roster’s catalog of actual villain characters is highly lacking and disproportionate at the moment.
To be fair, the launch roster is fairly varied as is and large enough to sustain players until Season 1 or whenever new characters are added. There’s probably a quarter of the roster that players haven’t experienced themselves while cherry-picked Heroes have been perceived as overpowered, and cries for nerfs have inevitably and irrevocably begun. Jeff is one such Marvel Rivals Strategist who has proven to be an absolute menace with his It’s Jeff! Ultimate’s questionable hitbox, and yet a sizable portion of the fanbase adores the Land Shark for how playful, cute, and innocent he is otherwise. Jeff isn’t the only adorable animal character in Marvel’s eclectic pantheon, though, and Marvel Rivals will hopefully see that for the gold mine it is.
Marvel Rivals Must Strike While the Iron is Hot with Adorable Animal Characters
Marvel Rivals’ Jeff the Land Shark has been the game’s most meme-worthy character and his cuteness is more than deserving of ubiquitous praise, as is his Ultimate deserving of frustration. It can be tough to root against such a lovable baby shark, especially when he’s animated and illustrated like a chubby, happy puppy rather than a menacing, beady-eyed shark. Marvel Rivals surely needs to continue peppering its roster with popular characters such as Gambit, Ghost Rider, or Gamora, but if it wants to further capitalize on how beloved Jeff is it would be remiss not to feature any of Marvel’s other adorable animal characters, including:
- Ant-thony (perhaps as a mount for Ant-Man)
- Cosmo
- Devil Dinosaur
- Goose
- Hit-Monkey
- Howard the Duck
- Lockjaw
- Throg
Marvel certainly has no shortage of animal characters whom Marvel Rivals could categorize into a class role and design to be as cute as Jeff the Land Shark. Goose, in particular, would be exceptional as an unassuming, tiny Flerken whose pocket dimension and purple tentacles could snatch opponents, though that could run too parallel with Jeff’s own gimmick.
Mewing and behaving like an ordinary house cat, Goose would be a formidable rival to Jeff’s exuberance. Likewise, Cosmo’s appearance as a Golden Retriever-Labrador mix in a dog-sized astronaut suit would be delightfully endearing with their telepathic and psionic abilities being perfect for a Strategist role in Marvel Rivals.
As an affiliate of the Guardians of the Galaxy, it would also be great to see Cosmo included in Adam Warlock, Mantis, and Star-Lord’s Guardian Revival Team-Up.
Marvel Rivals’ Post-Launch Characters Hopefully Don’t Follow a Sole Mantra
The knowledge that Fantastic Four characters will be coming to Marvel Rivals is unfortunate to have been received early via leaks, even though it was always inevitable given how there are not one but two Doctor Dooms leading the game as overarching narrative antagonists. Still, it’s great that Marvel Rivals can be counted on to represent characters from all walks of Marvel, popular or obscure as they may be.
Seeing how many Marvel characters were added who have also been depicted in the MCU, it’s a wonder if Marvel Rivals will want to continue that trend in order to churn out more MCU-inspired skins alongside them. Either way, Jeff the Land Shark opens a metaphorical mystical portal for Marvel Rivals to uniquely represent animal characters in the 6v6 hero shooter with endless imaginative possibilities for their associable powers and role functions.
Marvel Rivals
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 78 /100 Critics Rec: 84%
- Released
- December 6, 2024
- ESRB
- T For Teen // Violence
- Developer(s)
- NetEase Games
- Publisher(s)
- NetEase Games
WHERE TO PLAY
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 5
- Multiplayer
- Online Multiplayer, Online Co-Op
- Cross-Platform Play
- Limited - console crossplay, no PC crossplay
- Cross Save
- No
- Franchise
- Marvel
- Number of Players
- 1-6
- Steam Deck Compatibility
- Unknown
- PC Release Date
- December 6, 2024
- Xbox Series X|S Release Date
- December 6, 2024
- PS5 Release Date
- December 6, 2024
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PC
- Genre(s)
- Third-Person Shooter, Action, Multiplayer
- How Long To Beat
- 7.5 hours
- X|S Optimized
- Yes
- File Size Xbox Series
- 20 GB
- OpenCritic Rating
- Strong
