‘Marvel Rivals’ Director Says Fan Votes “An Important Factor” In Making Roster Picks, Promises More “Lesser-Known Yet Equally Fascinating Characters”
Hot on the feathers of Phoenix’s official reveal as a playable character, Marvel Rivals director Guangyun ‘Guangguang’ Chen has revealed that not only is the game’s potential character pool essentially limitless, but that fan sentiment is a major factor in deciding which heroes and villains get the priority treatment.
Chen spoke to the topic of the popular hero shooter’s future roster additions during a recent interview given to the aptly named news outlet VideoGamer.
Asked whether there existed any possibility that Marvel Rivals could eventually run out of new characters to add to its playable cast – a fair ask given Chen’s previous promise that there would be “a new hero debuting each month” – the director assured his host that such a scenario would be highly likely, as developer NetEase were “licensed to explore the full Marvel universe”.
Further, Chen noted that more than just a “focus on the heavy-hitters”, the dev team would continue to “shine a light on some lesser-known yet equally fascinating characters”, with the director noting that they were particularly satisfied with their work on “unique heroes like Jeff the Land Shark and Squirrel Girl”.
“The feedback [to the current roster] has been overwhelmingly positive,” he added. “It’s incredibly rewarding to see players connect with our choices.”
Regarding feedback, Chen told the outlet that more than just performance reviews, the Marvel Rivals devs also paid heavy attention to roster-related chatter, with fan opinions playing a significant role in deciding which specific characters will be called up to the big leagues.
“We continuously pay attention to the community and have noticed that players frequently take the initiative to vote on new heroes they would like to see in the future,””” Chen explained. “We consider these votes to be highly valuable and will use them as an important factor in our planning for upcoming seasons.”
And while not specifically roster-related, the director also confirmed that his team was listening to feedback regarding various gameplay features, the recent option to customize various costume colors having been one-such addition that originated on social media.
However, rather than haphazardly adding new features, Chen explained that each and every potential option was “researched by our internal team to assess its feasibility”.
As of writing, it’s unknown exactly which characters Chen and the Marvel Rivals team have on deck following the soon-to-debut Jean Grey (presumably Blade, given the Season 3 trailer, but there’s always a chance for a curveball).
But whoever happens to follow in her flame-pocked footsteps, fans can rest easy knowing that future combatants will be treated with the utmost care to their actual comic book character.
“What we do is, whenever we have a character, we’ll come up with a character background, who they are, and the comic references that appear in what they do, and we’ll hand it over to the design team,” explained Marvel Rivals Executive Producer Danny Koo of the game’s roster selection process. “Then they’ll come up with some ideas, and we’ll both agree on what their baseline is. When we feel good about [the hero], we go into production.”
“Then the marketing team is like, ‘Okay, how do we present this to new players that might not know whose world this is? Do we need to explain it?’” recalled the EP. “We have a comic historian come in.”
“Nothing is out of the question for now,” he admitted in regards to potential roster picks. “But we focus on making sure the characters are distinct from each other. For example, Hulk and Red Hulk roughly have the same silhouette, so we may not want to do that one.”
“Their [abilities] have to be as distinct as well because we have all kinds of players,” he concluded. “Some players love to be Strategists. Some players like to dive into the action. Some players just like to watch other people play. So we have to tailor to every kind of player.”
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