Marvel Rivals debuted its first official season on Jan. 10. Titled “Eternal Night Falls,” the season comes with the addition of new playable characters, new maps, a balance patch, and plenty of exciting cosmetics. “Eternal Night Falls” features double the content of your typical Marvel Rivals season, and as such is being split into two separate 45 day long periods. 

New Characters

The first half of “Eternal Night Falls” brings us two new playable characters: Reed Richards AKA Mister Fantastic (Ian James Colett), and Susan Storm AKA Invisible Woman (Suzie Yueng) of the Fantastic Four. Mister Fantastic is a duelist who uses his malleable anatomy to build up his elasticity meter. When it’s full, Mister Fantastic inflates, growing in size and increasing the power of his punches. Invisible Woman, on the other hand, is a strategist who aims to heal and protect her team with her invisibility, force fields, and psionic vortices. They also have a team-up ability when they are paired together, which allows Mister Fantastic to activate an additional ability to gain a little bit of bonus health that restores gradually.

The other half of the Fantastic Four, Human Torch and The Thing, will be added in the second half of the season. Not much information is known about them, aside from their character classes, with Human Torch being a duelist and The Thing being a vanguard.

New Maps and Gamemode

Fitting with the theme of the season, some new maps are being added to the game that take place in New York City, overrun by vampires. “Eternal Night Falls: Midtown” is a convoy map which sees the attacking team trying to help H.E.R.B.I.E., a robot helper of the Fantastic Four. The attacking team must escort the Fantasticar to the Baxter Building while the defending team is trying to stop them.

There is also a new gamemode with a map in the same theme. Titled “Doom Match,” the new gamemode functions deathmatch style; 12 players—every player for themselves—first to 16 eliminations wins. The map takes place in and around the home of Doctor Strange, called The Sanctum Sanctorum. The map includes many sporadically spread portals, with players being able to pass through them freely, giving the map the feeling of an endless maze.   

Cosmetics

Like many other free-to-play live service games, Marvel Rivals has a battle pass with every new season. This battle pass is available for purchase for 990 Lattice ($9.90), but a handful of the items are available to all players for free without necessitating spending any real money. The battle pass contains plenty of cosmetics, including various in-game currency, character emotes, character MVP animations, and most importantly. character skins. While plenty of the skins in the battle pass are Marvel Rivals originals—meaning this is the first time certain characters take on these looks—some of them are references to previous works, paying homage to the comics. This season, there are four skins that are pulled from the comics: All-Butcher (Loki), King Magnus (Magneto), Savage Sub-Mariner (Namor), and Emporium Matron (Scarlet Witch)

All-Butcher Loki references Loki from Earth 14412. In this universe Loki’s brother, Thor, has taken over their father’s mantle as the King of Asgard. Loki, wanting revenge on his brother, set his eyes on a mystical weapon: All-Black the Necrosword. After fighting plenty of powerful beings to get his hands on the weapon, he was fueled by its immense power, dubbing himself The All-Butcher.

King Magnus Magneto references Magneto of Earth 58163. In this universe, Mutants are the dominant species. King Eric Magnus, formerly Magneto, rules over the Mutant nation of Genosha alongside his family. Together, they are the House of Magnus (House of M.) After international conflict between the United States and Genosha, Magnus prevails and asserts himself and Genosha as the world’s premiere superpower, and integrates several powerful nations into his regime.

Savage Sub-Mariner Namor pays homage to his appearance in The Savage Submariner #67 from 1968. In this issue, Namor gets injured by an explosion while fleeing Atlantis and his ability to breathe air gets weakened. After being brought to the Fantastic Four, he begins fighting them, not knowing how he got there. He quickly falls ill due to his inability to breathe, so Mister Fantastic fashions him a suit that allows him to breathe air. 

Emporium Matron Scarlet Witch adapts Scarlet Witch’s costume from Hellfire Gala 2022 almost perfectly. The Hellfire Gala is Marvel’s equivalent to the Met Gala, where the mutant nation of Krakoa hosts a huge party where heroes and villains from around the globe don their most stylish and outgoing looks. 

Balance Patch

Alongside plenty of new content, the update also included a balance patch, where characters get strengthened (buffed) or weakened (nerfed). While I won’t go over every single change, I’ll list which characters either got stronger going into season one, or were too strong and needed to be toned down. You can find every balance change made here. Note that not every character will get buffed or nerfed every time.

Buffs: Captain America, Thor, Venom, Black Widow, Magik, Moon Knight, Namor, Scarlet Witch, The Punisher, Storm, Squirrel Girl, Wolverine, Cloak & Dagger, Rocket Raccoon

Nerfs: Doctor Strange, Hulk, Black Panther, Hawkeye, Hela, Psylocke, Winter Soldier, Jeff the Landshark, Luna Snow, Mantis

 Certain Team-ups between characters have also been changed in an attempt to further balance the game, as many characters’ strength lies in their Team-up abilities.

Buffs: Chilling Charisma (Luna Snow and Namor), Ammo Overload (Rocket Raccoon, The Punisher, and Winter Soldier), Metallic Chaos (Scarlet Witch and Magneto,) Voltaic Union (Thor, Storm, Captain America)

Nerfs: Allied Agents (Hawkeye and Blackwidow), Ragnarok Rebirth (Hela, Thor, and Loki)

That’s a wrap on everything new in the first half of Marvel Rivals Season One: “Eternal Night Falls.” I personally have been playing a ton and having a blast with the new characters, and I can definitely feel the balance changes to certain characters like Captain America, Hawkeye, Wolverine, and Thor when playing. Keep your eyes peeled in a few weeks when the second half of the season releases, as I’ll put out another recap on the new content like this one. Keep playing, have fun, and keep on rivalling.