"Marvel Rivals" Fan Event Showed the Game's Big Impact as "Avengers: Doomsday" Tie-Ins Were Announced
Obviously most video games wouldn't hold a big fan event at the Disney-owned El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, given most games don't have a Disney tie-in to do so. But on top of that, many games wouldn't hold an event there because so many don't have the kind of passionate fanbase to justify filling a thousand-seat theatre for several hours to celebrate a game.
But Marvel Rivals has cemented itself as just such a game. Since its debut in 2024, the game has been incredibly successful, while also gathering a very dedicated following. And sure, Marvel in general -- fueled even more this century by the MCU -- has long been a popular brand, but it's clear that Marvel Rivals has people who are locked into this specific game and these specific versions of the characters.
In the lobby, the game's version of Deadpool was there to greet fans, sporting his Marvel Rivals costume. And next to him was Jeff's Lemonade Stand, representing the Jeff the Land Shark emote now available in the game's Times Square setting - with Jeff himself an example of an obscure character from the comics who's now been elevated in status in a huge way because they are a part of Marvel Rivals.
The game's focused fandom was expressed, in an amusing way, when footage from the game was shown during a sizzle reel at the top of the event, and many big cheers could be heard for Mister Fantastic, while there was some outright booing Black Widow. No disrespect to the brilliant Reed Richards, but he normally wouldn't be far more popular than Natasha Romanoff, but things are different in the Marvel Rivals realm, where most would be much happier either playing as Reed or having him on their team than Natasha, thanks to their skill sets within the game.
The crowd was incredibly hyped up, with massive screams for glimpses of characters or stories from the game they love - The Rogue and Gambit romance-fueled "Love is a Battlefield" got a major response during the sizzle reel, as did the glimpse of Cyclops (a character fans are clamoring to be added to the game) from that story.
Hosted by Cozy, and anchored throughout the night by Marvel Games' Danny Koo (Marvel Rising Executive Producer), the night kicked off with Koo joined by Creative Director Guangguang and Publishing and Marketing Lead Yachen Bian, both from NetEase Games, for what turned out to be a fairly small number of announcements, and it was disappointing that no new characters were revealed at the event.
The big reveal was that Marvel Rivals will have their own "Path to Doomsday" tie-ins leading into Marvel Studios' Avengers: Doomsday in December. While specifics were kept light, it was said that there will be new game modes and in-game events inspired by all the Avengers movies (although they also used the term Infinity Saga) rolling out throughout the year, with a graphic revealing The Avengers in April, Avengers: Age of Ultron in June, Avengers: Infinity War in August, Avengers: Endgame in October and then finally Avengers: Doomsday on December 18th - the same day the movie opens.
We also learned that the April tie-in for The Avengers will introduce a new limited-time special game mode where one player plays as Loki, facing off against six other players as different heroes. Loki will have new skills and a new Marvel Rivals look that matches his Avengers movie outfit.
Also announced were the March 6 debut of a couple of new skins in the form of “Once-Captive Corsair” Psylocke and “Cursed Captain” Captain America. Corsair is Cyclops' space pirate father, which feels like yet another bit of teasing for the inevitable debut of Cyclops himself as a playable character.
The remainder of the night was mainly focused on panels featuring the voice cast of Marvel Rivals, who were split up into five different groupings due to how many participants there were. It was a very impressive array of talent assembled, including -- deep breath -- Alexs Le (Daredevil), Alejandro Saab (Deadpool), Liam O’Brien (Doctor Strange), Scott Porter (Star-Lord), Stephen Fu (Iron Fist), Lenore Zann (Rogue), Josh Keaton (Iron Man), Joe Zieja (Bruce Banner), Jim Meskimen (Ultron), James Mathis (Black Panther), Jon Bailey (Jeff the Land Shark), Michael Scott (Knull), Ian James Corlett (Mister Fantastic), Daisy Lightfoot (Spider-Zero), Cassandra Lee Morris (Galacta), Mara Junot (Storm), Laura Post (Emma Frost), Colleen O'Shaughnessey (Mantis), Brittany Cox (Angela), Alpha Takahashi (Psylocke), Hakeem Ysaguirre (Cloak), Xanthe Huynh (Dagger), Jordan Reynolds (Adam Warlock), Elijah Mountjoy (Winter Soldier), Daniel Marin (Namor), and Bill Millsap (Punisher).
The cast all expressed their deep appreciation for how beloved the game was, and how astounding it was to realize how popular it had quickly become, especially for those in it from the start. As the voice of Galacta, Morris is pretty much the one actor guaranteed to be heard by every person playing the game, and she laughed recalling being in line at the grocery store right after Marvel Rivals debuted, and she's been told ten million people had been playing it, and pondering who around her might have heard her as the character.
Le revealed he, Saab and Fu have long played Marvel Rivals together and while Fu has always been in the game, he and Saab had been "very jealous" of their friend - only to end up in the game themselves eventually. Meanwhile, the nature of solo game voice recording meant that Ysaguirre and Huynh not only never recorded together as the duo Cloak & Dagger, but didn't meet until the game's first anniversary.
Keaton spoke about how he wanted to have nods to Robert Downey Jr.'s iconic performance as Iron Man in his delivery, while still making its own, while Mathis had the interesting history of having voiced Black Panther in multiple projects that date back to before Chadwick Boseman played the role in the MCU. Still, while he obviously long knew what worked for the character, he kept Boseman in mind as well. There were big cheers for Zann from the crowd, who is once more reprising Rogue, having first played the character in the beloved 1990s X-Men animated series and now has returned to her for both X-Men '97 and Marvel Rivals.
The event was a long one - ultimately overlong, running nearly four hours with no official breaks, although between the panel conversations, there were giveaways that you could eventually count on as good moment to run to the bathroom, were you not attempting to win anything (though most in attendance definitely wanted to win!). In a way, it felt like the whole thing might have been better served by actually making a full day of it, with officially listed start times for each mini-panel and the opportunity for some much-needed leg stretching breaks included. It also felt like some audience questions should have been incorporated in some form, perhaps in the form of submitting them ahead of time, though they did a good job of mixing things up so each group of actors didn't answer the same questions.
Other entertainment included a fun costume contest that allowed for anyone in a Marvel costume -- not just one from Marvel Rivals -- to participate, and did make me hope for skins of some of them to make it into the game. How fun would it be for Matt Murdock's "I'm Not Daredevil" outfit from the comics to make it into a Rivals brawl!?
The night was capped off by a great four-song performance of music from the game that included composer Shota Nakama and singer Adriana Figueroa - the first time Marvel Rivals music had been performed live. The final song was the disco infused "Flight Mode" song celebrating the 8th anniversary of Luna Snow, accompanied by video of Thor and Spider-Man getting into the Disco spirit.
Though there were some kinks to be worked out, it was clear that the audience was very much both willing to show up and amazingly excited for this sort of Marvel Rivals event, making me suspect it might not be the last one...