Marvel Rivals’ Approach to One Feature is Something…

According to Game Director Aaron Keller's December Director's Take, Overwatch 2 is set to undergo some significant changes. For fans wondering what to expect from Overwatch 2 in 2025, it's been confirmed that Season 15's competitive landscape will feature "a bit of a shakeup like [Team 4] did at the start of 2024." Though more concrete details have yet to be shared, fans hope Blizzard will continue to expand on the game's lore moving forward.

Unfortunately, the narrative experience in Overwatch 2 has taken a backseat since Blizzard decided to drop the PvE missions introduced in Season 6. While comics and short stories are available, in-game storytelling remains limited. As such, if Blizzard were to take a page out of Marvel Rivals' approach to storytelling, it could be a great way to engage lore enthusiasts while enriching the in-game universe.

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By Bruna Telles

Marvel Rivals Invests in Its Story

Marvel Rivals Delivers Compelling Hero Stories

Marvel Rivals benefits from being part of a major IP, which allows the game to pull from a deep well of characters in the Marvel multiverse. It's clear why the developers have chosen to expand these narratives via the MARVEL RIVALS comic series, seasonal events, and individual hero stories.

To access individual hero stories, navigate to the "Lore" tab of a "Hero Profile." Players will find a summary of their character's background and motivations here, with three unlockable hero stories on the right. It's unclear whether NetEase Games will add new hero stories after all three are unlocked, but it seems likely considering the pacing of Marvel Rivals' story so far.

Each hero's story varies in length and details, but they serve well to expand on the game's narrative of Doctor Doom's experimentation with the timeline. For instance, Mantis’ tale details her daring escape from The Collector, during which she also liberates Psylocke and Jeff the Land Shark. Loki’s story describes his schemes amid the chaos of the Timestream Entanglement, where he experiments with Yggdrasil’s sap and forms an alliance with Hela to claim Asgard’s throne for himself.

Overwatch 2 Should Introduce Its Own Version of Hero Stories

With the narrative of Overwatch 2's PvE missions abandoned, Blizzard still has other ways to keep the story alive. While the game does feature a Missions Codex, it's far from a full story. Lore enthusiasts of Overwatch 2 were eager to see the second half of the missions, which, based on information from BlizzCon 2019, would have included Suravasa as a story location. Considering many wanted to see the members of Overwatch reunite or meet for the first time, alongside Ramattra's motivations regarding Null Sector, hero stories have great potential to capitalize on that.

In 2024, Blizzard's mass layoffs claimed the positions of Lead Narrative Designer Gavin Jurgens-Fyhrie and many other employees. Despite this, Jurgens-Fyhrie revealed in a now-deleted post on X (formerly Twitter) that the story was at least partially finished. The post read: "I love the story we came up with for this, and I hope it gets told someday."

It seems that Gavin Jurgens-Fyhrie's entire X account was deleted, not the individual post.

Though books like Overwatch: Declassified - An Official History contain clues about how the in-game story would have progressed, they lack the accessibility of integrating hero stories directly into the game. Implementing unlockable stories in-game, like Marvel Rivals, would require less effort and appeal to fans of the characters. Additionally, this approach would undoubtedly create opportunities to expand the story further.

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