Marvel Rivals released the second half of its first official season on Feb. 20. The update comes with the addition of new playable characters, a new map, a balance patch, and a few exciting cosmetics. 

New Characters

Marvel’s “first family” has been reunited in Marvel Rivals as two new characters: Johnny Storm AKA Human Torch (Scott Whyte) and Ben Grimm AKA The Thing (Andrew Morgado) join the game as playable characters. The Thing is a brawler type vanguard who aims to use his size and immunity to displacement to cause havoc and clobber his foes. Human Torch, on the other hand, is a free flying character who uses his flame fields and fire walls to burn his opponents to a crisp. The Thing can perform the Fastball Special team-up with Wolverine, throwing him at their enemies, and both Human Torch and The Thing join Invisible Woman’s team-up, allowing all members of the Fantastic Four to gain a little bit of bonus health over time. Additionally, Human Torch brings a whole new team-up to the game. When he is paired with Storm, the two can combine their ultimate abilities together to create a huge, devastating flaming tornado that is larger, lasts longer, and does more damage than Storm’s regular ultimate ability.

Cosmetics

Like every other playable character in Marvel Rivals, The Thing and Human Torch have epic cosmetics. The Thing’s skin, aptly titled “Trench Coat,” is a reference to the very first Fantastic Four Comic, Fantastic Four #1 (1961). In the comic, the Fantastic Four get exposed to cosmic radiation, and their bodies change and they gain extraordinary superpowers. Ben Grimm, in an effort to conceal his newfound rocky exterior, throws on a fedora and trench coat, which would go on to become one of his most iconic costumes for decades to come.

Human Torch’s skin, titled “Negative Zone Gladiator,” is a reference to Fantastic Four #600 (1998). In this issue, Human Torch sacrifices himself to save the rest of the Fantastic Four. He stays in the Negative Zone, an alternate dimension ruled by the evil insectoid tyrant Annihilus. While in the Negative Zone, Human Torch takes on a new costume as he leads a rebellion of Negative Zone prisoners to overthrow Annihilus.

New Map

The midseason patch also brought with it a new map. In the same theme style as the map added at the beginning of this season, Empire of Eternal Night: Central Park sees the attacking team trying to help Ratatoskr, the Asgardian Squirrel Goddess, stop Dracula. Dracula has taken Blade “The Daywalker,” captive for trying to foil his plans. The defending team is trying to stop Ratatoskr from reaching Dracula so that Iron Man and Moon Knight can use the Montesi formula, a magical spell that instantly kills vampires, to defeat Dracula themselves.   

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 the second half of Season 1, 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 a balance patch occurs.

Buff: Captain America, Groot, Thor, Venom, Hawkeye, Hela, Iron Fist, Iron Man, Scarlet Witch, Spider-Man, Star-Lord, Adam Warlock.

Nerf: Doctor Strange, Magneto, Black Widow, Magik, Mister Fantastic, Moon Knight, Storm, Cloak & Dagger, Invisible Woman, Loki, Luna Snow.

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.

Buff: Atlas Bond (Luna Snow and Iron Fist), Dimensional Shortcut (Magik, Black Panther, and Psylocke), Lunar Force (Cloak & Dagger and Moonknight), Symbiote Bond (Venom, Peni Parker, and Spider-Man)

Nerf: Gamma Charge (Hulk, Iron Man, and Doctor Strange)

Season 2

While it hasn’t been officially announced yet, we have several clues pointing towards the theming of Marvel Rivals’ second seasons. The first and largest clue is that in the Gallery Card titled “Plans within Plans” we see a bit of lore explaining the narrative behind the events taking place on the new map. The very last line of the gallery card’s lore description reads “Now, if you will excuse me, Doom has a gala to attend…” In the Marvel Universe, there’s only one gala of such high importance that even Dr. Doom would be attending; The Hellfire Gala. The Hellfire Gala is a multipurpose state dinner/party/election held by the Mutant nation of Krakoa where people show off their most stylish and lavish attire. If this is a hint as to what the future of Marvel Rivals holds, we can speculate who may be coming as new playable characters in season two. According to X0XLEAK on X (formerly Twitter), there are a few characters that have already been datamined to appear in Marvel Rivals. The most likely candidates for a Hellfire Gala themed season are Emma Frost and Jean Grey, both of which are datamined and are important players in Krakoa stories. We don’t have any reliable information as to what either of them will do in game at this time.

That’s a wrap on everything added in the second half of Marvel Rivals Season 1: Eternal Night Falls. This season has been huge and gave its players boatloads of content. While the development team has confirmed that this season is extra plentiful, due to it being the functional launch season, they have set a good precedent of adding new content, listening to community feedback, and keeping their player base engaged.