Marvel Games' Danny Koo on Choosing the Next Characters for "Marvel Rivals" and Navigating Different Power Sets
Recently in Hollywood, a jam-packed event was held at the El Capitan Theatre to celebrate Marvel Rivals, with the fans in attendance proving just how much they have embraced this game in the two years since it launched. After seeing that enthusiasm firsthand, I jumped on Zoom a week later with one of the main participants from the event, Danny Koo (Executive Producer, Marvel Games) -- who was in the midst of attending the GDC Festival of Gaming in San Francisco -- to discuss the ongoing popularity of Marvel Rivals.
Danny and I chatted about the potential for more events, how the game has put a spotlight on more obscure characters, how the decision is made on who to introduce next, and much more.
Eric Goldman, Laughing Place: What was it like to be onstage at that El Capitan event? As popular as Marvel in general is, I imagine it's pretty amazing to see how much of a community has gathered around this game specifically.
Danny Koo: Oh yes, for sure. We expected people to come, but we didn't expect them to be that passionate and cheering and enjoying every moment - especially when the creative director, Guangguang, came on stage. Which he never does, by the way! Everybody just loves him. In fact, while we're walking together here at GDC, it's a lot of "Are you Guangguang! And then I walk around with a Luna [toy] and people ask "Is that Luna Snow?!" So Marvel Rivals has made its way into all walks of life. We are so glad that this happened in terms of pop culture impact.
LP: What do you think is the secret to both the game's success and now the long term popularity?
Koo: I think in terms of the Marvel DNA, first we have to have authenticity of the heroes, of the characters in the game. The lore is creative and expansive in the Marvel Rivals universe. And of course, gameplay has to be very strong. On top of that, with the awesome community management by the NetEase team, everything comes together so well that this magic happens.
LP: The event was just over a week ago, but does it make you excited to potentially do more stuff like that?
Koo: Oh, definitely. I've spoken to Guangguang and he's like, "Yeah, let's do more of this!" So that we can continue with fan engagement and provide surprises along the way that are delightful. Also, you know, a game lives in the digital world. If we're able to translate that into real life, into making real friends, even by playing Marvel Rivals, that's a that's a huge win for everybody.
LP: In the lobby at the El Cap, there was Jeff's lemonade stand and you could meet the game version of Deadpool. That's fun for fans, but I imagine that must be pretty wild for you too to see these game specifics brought to life.
Koo: Oh, definitely. That creator, Sentinel -- his name is his call sign -- he's very passionate. I believe he has done every reincarnation of Jeff the Land Shark display in various outfits. I mean, who would know that Jeff the Land Shark would blow up?!
LP: Right?! That's an amazing thing about the game, because while the MCU helped introduce a mainstream audience to so many characters, the game is proof that there's always more still within Marvel. So what is it like to see the kind of fandom build around a character that we might describe as pretty obscure, like Jeff the Land Shark?
Koo: I think it is very important to also highlight the development team's ability to take any of the Marvel characters, embody their personality traits, and also their power set, and make it so cool that even if you're not familiar with the character, you just want to hang out with the character. And furthermore, we partner up with Marvel Unlimited to make sure that every time we have a new character in a season, they have a companion reading list. It's like, "Hey, you want to learn more about this character that you might not know about? Here is a bunch of comics that you can dive into!"
LP: I feel like that must kind of really embolden you guys, because while there are obviously some characters that people have been really dying to see in the game, it shows you that there are some deeper cuts you could also bring in that could be interesting.
Koo: Oh, for sure, definitely. We plan a year out. We carefully plan them. I would say about 70% of it are the fan favorite, popular, greatest hits. And then about 20, 25% is like, the curveball. It's like, "Oh, okay, that might work.... Oh, cool!" And then there's this 5% of the unknown. "Who is this?" You'd think Elsa Bloodstone is super popular, but a lot of fans in Marvel Rivals [first asked] "Who is that?" and and they discover the history, and that she has a special presentation from Marvel Studios with Werewolf By Night. And then, "Do you know her classic costume? Her first appearance where she had blonde hair?" There's so much lore that you can dig into, that a player can dive into and play with, which is very, very exciting, because now we help drive players back to discover comics again, which they love. And we also partner with Marvel Unlimited to come up with the seasonal Marvel Rivals arc on the side so that serves as a companion and asks what happened outside of the battle.
LP: One of my all time favorite Marvel characters is Magik, and I've seen that a lot of people have been introduced to her from this game and have become big fans. So thank you for helping spread the gospel of Magik!
Koo: I grew up with Final Fantasy. I'm always a big sword guy, and when I first learned about Magik, it's like, "Oh, she has a giant sword!" We have to make her play well. We have to present her in such a way... Especially her Darkchylde side. Make it more surprising, because not a lot of games suddenly transform a character into a whole different character. That is a [big] transformation. Imagine Bruce Banner going to hero Hulk, going monster Hulk, that's also a different kind of transformation along the way. So with that expression, we can do a lot of stuff to amplify even unknown characters that are in different shapes or forms that we can potentially just put in the game.
LP: You had a big announcement at the event about The Path to Doomsday and adding in new aspects from each Avengers movie through this year. Can you talk more about how that will play out in the next few months?
Koo: So basically, up to Doomsday, we are resurfacing the Avengers movies, because the last Avengers movie was in 2019. It's been a while! So since Marvel Rivals attracted such a big fan base, both new and old Marvel fans, we want to make sure that everybody either get their refresher from the beginning, where it all started, aand then take them through the various Infinity Saga arcs - Avengers 1, 2, 3 and 4, and all paths leading to Doomsday. We want to provide new and exciting game modes. Loki is the first one because it's from The Avengers. One player will play as Loki with, of course, different skills, to battle against six other players that play as various heroes. So we're gonna have a first asymmetrical mode, PvP mode, and then for outro, we're gonna have different ways to play Infinity War, etc. And we're just gonna carry players through this journey to to the pinnacle, where everybody can enjoy Marvel Studios' Avengers: Doomsday.
LP: I want to also ask about PvE (Player versus environment), which you introduced into the game for the first time with the zombie mode. At the event, you mentioned more was coming.
Koo: Oh, definitely. Path to Doomsday is not part of that PvE we're talking about, but PvE is part of the regular 2026 roadmap, and we're going to bring new PvE modes to encourage players to come together to achieve a common goal outside of the sweaty play in rank or quick play. We get feedback from the players that they do enjoy de-stressing in modes like this. And PvE allow us to tell additional story inside the game. For example, we launched Times Square, and we thought it was just something cool, where players can hang out and mingle. But it went beyond that. Players wanted more stuff to do in Times Square. We have brought in new modes, like the dancing nightclub under the subway with Luna 1v1 mode, like a Fight Club-ish mode for players to challenge each other. And they can pay to broadcast their 1v1 match out in the Times Square, just to show off. So we will continue to bring all these modes, and then if the player likes it, we'll keep it in the arcade mode collections, where players can access those down the road.
LP: You mentioned Luna Snow, and obviously that's a character you co-created [for Marvel Future Fight]. I imagine it must feel great to see more and more people have gravitated to her.
Koo: Oh yes, definitely. Luna, we'd consider an obscure character as well, because she lived previously just in the mobile game. And then these games, we partner with them to blow it out the water, where we make Luna even more immersive. We continue writing songs for her, and if you look at Spotify, we have like 100,000 monthly listener for Luna.
LP: Is that something you could ever have imagined when you were helping come up with her?
Koo: I wouldn't imagine at this scale... We wanted to slowly build her, but she just skyrocketed of a sudden, and we're like, "Oh, we have to do more!"
LP: When it comes to bringing in new characters and stories, I've got sort of a chicken and the egg question. Does it start with "Hey, let's bring in this character and then let's figure out a cool story for them." Or is it the opposite? Is it "Okay, we've got this story idea... Now who would be a character that would make the most sense to introduce alongside it?"
Koo: I think it happens in tandem. So basically, we have a whole year arc, and then we divide the arc into seasons and roughly where the location should be, and then we'll bring in several characters that map against it. For example, it's "Hey, we're looking for somebody big" or "We're looking for somebody agile..." It's based on skill set. And we'll discuss it together with the NetEase Games team to identify the best character that fits for that season based on their role and story lore. And then asking is it different enough in the play and in the skill set of the characters compared to what is currently exists on the roster.
LP: How tricky is it to navigate different power levels? Obviously these characters have wildly different powers, which is one of the appealing aspects to them. But you don't want a character who can just instantly beat everyone with one button. So is it an interesting challenge to figure out how to make these characters recognizable, but maybe balance things out a little more for the game version?
Koo: Yeah, for sure. First they create a prototype of how the character would play, what the power set is, and then they have a system in place in the background, on a certain threshold. If the character performs over the threshold, then they're overpowered, and then under the threshold means it's not good enough. But if it's within the strike zone, then we can start making art and start concepting what it looks like, and we'll take it through all the way to execution. Now they do play tests every day before a character comes out in various levels, and they have pro players all the way to casual players in the play testing. It's an elite group of NetEase employees that were assembled together just for this purpose. And then when we deploy it, we'll watch carefully live data going on with players. And there are two key points. One is we will collect play data pattern, because it's digital, and the other one is perception. Perception means "Hey, is everyone saying that they get beaten by this character? Is it overpowered? Or do these groups of players just don't know how to counter it yet, or how to play their character yet?" So there are all these considerations that will lead us into balancing. So by balancing, we have to balance for fun. If we balance something and then it's not fun to play, then we failed. So all these kinds of considerations come in when we make a character.
LP: You guys have some characters like Magneto and Venom who've been the villains in the past, even if they've ended up in more of an anti-hero role. Are you looking to put in some more playable characters in Marvel Rivals that we might more traditionally think of as being a bad guy, to give your own spin on
Koo: Oh yes, we have a lot of feedback on that. We want to see more villains, and those are definitely in the works. We will see more villains, we'll see more anti-heroes. And of course, your [traditional] heroes. And because of the lore of Marvel Rivals, we able to be go in between. If I'm a bad guy and you're a good guy, you a bad guy to me. So it's kind of two sides of a coin we're able to present in such a fluid way. The greatest thing about Marvel Rivals is the team ups, right? We have all the greatest hits team ups over 86 years of Marvel history, and we can mix and match those teams up, and then team ups can change every season. So what works in this season might not work next season because the allegiance changes within the Marvel Rivals universe, which bring us a very exciting dynamic between characters.
LP: Is here a character that's been a particular happy surprise as far as how well embraced they've been?
Koo: I think, so far, the recently launched characters like Deadpool in triple role -- Deadpool in Vanguard, Deadpool in Dualist, Deadpool in Strategist -- which is quite funny, because we have never done that before in the hero shooter genre. And then Elsa Bloodstone... Even though she has a gun, she plays so different than Deadpool that we've been able to separate Deadpool and Elsa Bloodstone in very distinctive forms. And players actually like playing as Elsa Bloodstone even though we have other gun characters like the Punisher in the game already. So that's a nice surprise.
LP: The game is filled with these nods to the comic book history, and then people see, say, the Pym Particle food cart and the ability to grow big or small, and they wonder how much you're teasing what's to come. Is it fun to include those types of things and then see where the speculation goes?
Koo: Yeah, we love to work with the NetEase team to sprinkle in all kind of easter eggs everywhere around the Marvel Rivals world. Even on the maps... Like with the Collector's museum, there are so many characters in there or artifacts. And it is fun to see players posting their experience encountering these various discoveries on social media, and they actually make a video of it. The guys that just specialize in Marvel Rivals lore will walk through the entire map and say, "And here you'll find..." And it's like the Discovery Channel. It's like a museum walkthrough. It's been fun to see all this content showing up.
LP: It feels like it's gonna be a pretty big and exciting year for you guys, because obviously you've got the Avengers stuff, but it's not like that's the only thing you're doing.
Koo: There's definitely a lot of stuff. Two characters per season. We're going to continue to do new maps, new locations, new story, new PvE mode, new game modes. And The Path to Doomsday... It's a lot! We're already super busy with the 2026 regular road map, which has a lot of exciting stuff which we haven't revealed yet. And then we want to get an A plus on the test by putting out The Path to Doomsday.
LP: I don't want to be the guy who gives you 25 different characters I'd like to see in the game, because I'm sure you hear it all the time. So I'll just say that when you look at Alpha Flight in Marvel Comics, there's a lot of members, and they've got some interesting abilities...
Koo: We've been seeing a lot of Alpha Flight requests. It's like, "What about more Canadians!?"