On Nov. 3, 2025, esports team Sentinels announced that it will be stepping away from Marvel Rivals esports after establishing itself as one of the top contenders in the scene. Sentinels have won Ignite 2025 Stage 1: Americas and finished 7th-8th at the Marvel Rivals Ignite 2025: Mid Season Finals.

“We couldn’t be prouder of what we accomplished in the last year. Together, we built something special, leaving our mark on the early history of the game,” the organization said. It also added that it might revisit its decision of leaving Marvel Rivals’ esports scene “if and when NetEase roll out a program with team incentives.”

Before disbanding, the team comprised the following players on its roster:

• Ryan “Rymazing” Bishop
• Jimmy “Nectar” Lebel-Frenette
• William “Crimzo” Hernandez
• Jacob “Teki” Lebel-Frenette
• Chassidy “Aramori” Kaye
• Mark “Karova” Kvashin

Sentinels added that its former players are “now free to explore new opportunities, and we wish each of them nothing but success in whatever comes next.” Reactions under the X post show that fans are saddened about the organization’s departure.

Sentinels’ resume includes wins at the Tenax Rebirth Circuit, Rivals Fight Night #8: North America, Marvel Rivals Championship Season 1: Eternal Night Falls – North America PC and Rivals Fight Night #1: North America.

NetEase reworked both Jeff and Thor in the season 2.5 update – the rework increases both heroes’ viability in the meta. Thor received a change to his Awakening Rune, which now allows him to rapidly cycle between Hammer Throw and Mjolnir as well. As for Jeff, his Joyful Splash now pierces enemies and allies, allowing for faster ultimate charge. 

The full changes are listed below, according to Marvel Rivals’ official YouTube channel:

Marvel Rivals Thor Rework

With Hammer Throw removed from the shared ability pool and now recovering Lightning Energy on hit, Thor can rapidly cycle through Awakening Rune → Hammer Throw → Mjolnir Bash to quickly build up energy and maintain Awakening Rune for longer durations. 

Additionally, Thor can now utilize Hammer Throw’s long-range energy recovery to his advantage—first repositioning with Storm Surge to high ground or flanks, then following up with Hammer Throw + Awakening Rune for strong ranged damage output. 

Marvel Rivals Jeff Rework 

As for Jeff, the initial balance update mistakenly showed a non-final version of his changes—we’ve now corrected the announcement. We’ve also improved the feel of Joyful Splash, increasing its water flow speed for smoother control. 

In the updated version, Joyful Splash now pierces both allies and enemies, healing teammates while damaging opponents. With this change, Jeff now charges his ultimate faster, making combos like the Sharknado with Storm or solo initiations more effective than ever! 

Marvel Rivals swimsuit costumes are being teased in Marvel Swimsuit Special: Friends, Foes & Rivals #1, a comic that releases on July 9, 2025. Research by NewZoo states that 45% of Overwatch 2 players who stopped playing in December 2024 switched to Marvel Rivals.

NetEase added Chrono Shield Cards to Marvel Rivals, which prevent point loss from a defeat in Competitive. The item was included as a part of the Galacta’s Gift Event. The existence of the item sparked debate within the community, as the item brings the question of competitive integrity to mind.

To acquire Chrono Shield Cards in Marvel Rivals, players must participate in the Galacta’s Gift Event, which officially begins on May 15. Simply playing matches will eventually unlock the item. A total of eight Chrono Cards are currently available—the first four are earned at the second reward in the event, and the last four are the fourth reward. Although only eight can be obtained, a total of 20 Chrono Shield Cards can be held at one time. 

As of writing, participating in the Galacta’s Gift Event is the only method of obtaining Chrono Shield Cards; NetEase has confirmed that the shields will not be purchasable, thereby the mechanic will not in any way be pay-to-win. 

Marvel Rivals swimsuit costumes are being teased in Marvel Swimsuit Special: Friends, Foes & Rivals #1, a comic that releases on July 9, 2025. Research by NewZoo states that 45% of Overwatch 2 players who stopped playing in December 2024 switched to Marvel Rivals.

As a celebration of a year since its closed alpha test, NetEase released the S0 Battle Pass alongside the Galacta’s Gift event. The closed alpha test was the first time NetEase welcomed players into their universe, marking a pinnacle point in the game’s life. Celebrations for the anniversary officially begin on May 15, 2025, at 2:00 am PDT and go until May 29, 2025, at 2:00 am PDT. 

The S0 Battle Pass must be bought with real money, whereas the Galacta’s Gift event provides free rewards for playing the game. The rewards include Nameplates, Sprays and Chrono Shield Cards to a Costume Coin. The Costume Coin can be redeemed to acquire a costume for any one of the 33 heroes featured in Season 0.

The S0 Battle Pass costs 590 Lattice currency; no free rewards are featured in the return Battle Pass, and all rewards require the Luxury Battle Pass. Battle Passes never expire upon purchasing. Players can continue to unlock rewards in future seasons as well.

According to NetEase, “Future Battle Pass returns might occur, but any such plans will span at least two seasons and be priced at a minimum of 20% higher than the original seasonal rate. We hope that this limited return will excite anyone who missed the original S0 Battle Pass.”

Marvel Rivals swimsuit costumes are being teased in Marvel Swimsuit Special: Friends, Foes & Rivals #1, a comic that releases on July 9, 2025. Research by NewZoo states that 45% of Overwatch 2 players who stopped playing in December 2024 switched to Marvel Rivals.

The upcoming Marvel Rivals patch update launches on May 8 at 9:00 am UTC, marking the return of the game mode Giant-Size Brain Blast. The update also adds minor bug fixes alongside new items Sunshine Raccoon and Sunshine Squirrel, the latter of which had her in-game model teased.

In the game mode, each team is granted a single random hero to play as. Each hero has a massive head, making headshots far easier. Marvel Rivals’ upcoming game mode is available during the following times:

• May 9 at 9:00 am UTC to May 12 at 9:00 am UTC
• May 16 at 9:00 am UTC to May 19 at 9:00 am UTC

Here are the full Marvel Rivals patch notes, according to an official Marvel Rivals blog post:

Marvel Rivals patch notes

New in store

• Rocket Raccoon – Sunshine Raccoon Bundle
• Squirrel Girl – Sunshine Squirrel Bundle

New content

The emote and spray wheel has been reimagined.

• They are now split into two separate wheels with dedicated hotkeys for lightning-fast switching.
• In the Cosmetics – Sprays menu, you can now set your current spray wheel to be shared across all heroes.
• A new quick-equip feature has been added: Emotes can be automatically slot into the corresponding hero’s emote wheel upon acquisition; and when the spray wheel is set to “Apply to All,” newly earned sprays can also be equipped instantly.

Portraits in “Heroes” have been updated to reflect their currently equipped costumes.

Fixes

All platforms

Maps and modes

• Vanquished a glitch that would sometimes occur under rare circumstances where players who didn’t provide the most healing in a match were mistakenly awarded the Gifted Healer badge.

Heroes

• Jeff’s Missing Meal: We’ve wiped out a glitch where, in controller mode, when Jeff the Land Shark swallowed 6 enemies with his Ultimate Ability, only 5 avatar icons showed up on screen. Now, our fin-tastic friend will see his 6-piece meal every time!
• Banner’s Space Out: We’ve smashed a bug that left all three forms of Bruce Banner unable to bind the jump action to the Spacebar. Now, Banner can leap into action as intended.

Other

• We’ve remedied an oversight, where in anonymous mode, using voice chat still revealed your original name.

Marvel Rivals swimsuit costumes are being teased in Marvel Swimsuit Special: Friends, Foes & Rivals #1, a comic that releases on July 9, 2025. Research by NewZoo states that 45% of Overwatch 2 players who stopped playing in December 2024 switched to Marvel Rivals.

Netease has announced the global tournament Marvel Rivals Ignite, slated to start on May 25, 2025, in the Americas, EMEA, China, Asia, and Oceania, with a prize pool of over $3 million.

Unlike past events that kept teams separated by region, Marvel Rivals Ignite will culminate in a Global Finals showdown set for November 2025.

Each region will hold its own qualifiers throughout the year, with the top-performing squads earning a spot at the Global Finals in November. Like prior Marvel Rivals competitions, PC and console teams will compete within their own lanes.

Marvel Rivals’ last big esports event, the Marvel Rivals Championship (MRC), offered no crossover between regional winners and distributed around $260,000 in total prize money, while earlier regional Marvel Rivals Invitationals 2025 featured total prize pools of $100,000.

A third-person hero shooter, Marvel Rivals, was released for PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X|S on Dec. 6, 2024. The PvP title gained over 10 million registered users within just 72 hours. On top of that, in its financial report released on Feb. 20, 2025, Netease announced that Marvel Rivals had officially surpassed 40 million players across all platforms.

NetEase’s upcoming patch update balances heroes, adds new content, and fixes various bugs. Releasing on April 30 at 9 am UTC, the patch update will be applied seamlessly, meaning there will be no server downtime.

A new event, Hellfire Gala, allows players to earn Wolverine’s “Patch” series costume for free; the event is available from May 2 at 9 am UTC to May 23 at 9 am UTC.

As for the hero balancing, Captain America’s health has been decreased, making the pick more vulnerable and thereby allowing other Vanguards to see more play. Groot received a nerf to his Ironwood Wall as well, a move that has been overbearing to deal with since the game’s initial release. 

Here are the rest of the hero balancing notes, according to NetEase’s official patch notes:

Hero Balance Notes

Vanguard

Captain America

• Reduce base health from 650 to 600.

Doctor Strange

• Decrease the energy cost to unleash Eye of Agamotto (Ultimate Ability) from 3,400 to 3,100.

Groot

• Reduce the health of Ironwood Wall from 700 to 600.

Duelist

Spider-Man

• Decrease the damage range of Amazing Combo from a 5m radius to a 4m radius.

Winter Soldier

• Adjust the Tainted Voltage ability to have 2 charge levels while keeping the cooldown time unchanged.

Strategist

Adam Warlock

• Add a new effect to Quantum Magic: When a critical hit lands on an enemy, reduce the cooldown time of Avatar Life Stream by 1s.

Cloak & Dagger

• As Cloak, increase the damage of Darkforce Cloak from 75/s to 80/s.
• As Dagger, increase the damage of Lightforce Dagger on hit from 15 to 18.

Luna Snow

• Adjust Damage Falloff of Light & Dark Ice from 60% at 40m to 75%.

Mantis

• Increase the hit damage of Life Energy Blast from 50 to 55.

Team-Up Abilities

Stars Aligned (Captain America x Winter Soldier)

• Upon leaping to a teammate, Stellar Impact will provide 50 Bonus Health to allies within range.

Here are NetEase’s notes for the new events and content, which were mentioned separately from the hero balancing:

All-New Event – Hellfire Gala: Moments

• Join the party and earn Wolverine’s “Patch” series costume rewards—completely free!
• Event Duration: 2025/05/02 09:00:00 ~ 2025/05/23 09:00:00 (UTC)

New In Store

• Winter Soldier – Thunderbolts* Bundle
• Black Panther – Damisa-Sarki Bundle

Costume Optimizations

• Thor’s “Lord of Asgard” costume has been refined to improve visibility and ensure the crosshair isn’t obstructed.
• Doctor Strange’s “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” costume now boasts enhanced visual details and voice effects to more accurately capture the essence of the costume theme.

New Content

• You can now switch all costume-specific sound effects back to the default ones via Settings.
• Using the latest S2.0 data, we’ve recalibrated the baseline data for calculating each hero’s performance scores.
• Locked accounts can now initiate the account deletion process even from a logged-out state.

Fixes

All Platforms

Maps and Modes

• Squashed a bug in Competitive where an occasional map glitch incorrectly displayed check point gate statuses.
• Reined in some mischief in the final part of the Empire of Eternal Night: Midtown map where Loki’s illusions could be placed in unexpected locations.
• Fixed an issue in Giant-Size Brain Blast where destroying enemy summons would also count toward enlarging heroes’ heads.

Heroes

• Stealth Special Breaker: We’ve sliced through a glitch where if Wolverine responds to a Fastball Special request while within Invisible Woman’s ultimate, it would sometimes result in abnormal invisibility effects.
• An Unexpected Thing: We’ve rocked out a fix for an issue that allowed The Thing’s Embattled Leap to target teammates within an enemy Invisible Woman’s ultimate. Now, he’ll be as clueless as he should be.
• Cloak & Dagger’s Shield Shenanigans: We’ve zapped a bug where their ultimate would sneakily still do damage to foes protected by Magneto’s Iron Bulwark or Hulk’s Indestructible Guard—talk about an unexpected plot twist!
• Wolverine’s Aerial Annihilator: Fixed a flaw in the second stage of his ultimate where midair knockbacks lost their bite and dealt no damage. Now, when Wolverine soars into the fray, every strike is felt with the raw power of a true berserker!
• Star-Lord’s Rocket Revamp: Eliminated an occasional speed decay glitch in his Rocket Propulsion ability, impacting his smooth movement. Now, every blast-off is as snappy and daring as a mixtape drop from the Milano!
• Mister Fantastic’s Fantastic Flex Fix: We’ve untangled an issue in his Flexible Elongation ability where hitting targets inside portals caused unexpected displacement. Now, when Mister Fantastic bends the limits of physics, his moves are as smart and precise as his genius!
• Ascender’s Altitude Assurance: Fixed a network instability-related bug that could sometimes abruptly yank wall-climbing heroes back to the ground after reaching the highest point. Now, every climb is as steady and heroic as your soaring ambitions!

Marvel Rivals swimsuit costumes are being teased in Marvel Swimsuit Special: Friends, Foes & Rivals #1, a comic that releases on July 9, 2025.

Marvel Rivals is debuting a new game mode: Giant-Size Brain Blast. The game mode is exactly as it sounds — all playable characters in this game mode feature a giant head. This makes for far easier headshots since the characters’ heads make up half of their body proportions. 

Beginning on April 25, the upcoming Marvel Rivals Game Mode: Giant-Size Brain Blast will provide exclusive quests alongside rewards. The new game mode features leaderboards with various rewards for achieving the top 10, top 100 and top 500. 

Here are the rewards: 

• Top 10: Planet-Sized-Brain Iron Man
• Top 100: Monster-Sized-Brain Iron Man
• Top 500: Giant-sized-Brain IRon Man

By completing 10 matches, players can pick their own brain blast emote. The emotes increase the respective character’s head size momentarily in any game mode — serving as memorabilia for the limited-time Giant-Size Brain Blast. Judging from the short teaser, which is currently the only official announcement regarding the new game mode, players can only earn one emote through the event per account. 

There are a handful of free skins readily available on Marvel Rivals.MarvelRivals.gg has instructions on how to acquire the mentioned costumes — clicking on the internal links within the “How to Get” tab reveals articles detailing the appropriate step-by-step process to earn the free Marvel Rivals costumes.

Research by NewZoo states that 45% of Overwatch 2 players who stopped playing in December 2024 switched to Marvel Rivals.

New Marvel Rivals swimsuit costumes are being revealed in the summer – the costumes debut as a part of MARVEL SWIMSUIT SPECIAL: FRIENDS, FOES & RIVALS #1, an annual one-shot that releases on July 9, 2025. 

The one-shot is a part of the Swimsuit Special, which features artwork with Marvel characters in swimsuits. These one-shots contain an overarching story, but the main purpose of the one-shot is to serve more so as an art showcase over canonical development. The upcoming  MARVEL SWIMSUIT SPECIAL: FRIENDS, FOES & RIVALS #1 is the first of its kind, as it celebrates Marvel Rivals characters. 

According to Marvel, “the issue will also include designs for new costumes coming soon to Marvel Rivals, the mega popular multiplayer video game from Marvel Games and NetEase Games.”

Friends, foes, and Rivals is written by Tim Seeley and Tony Fleecs. The art is by Nic Bradshaw, Nic Klein, Marguerite Sauvage, Luciano Vecchio and more. The Wraparound Cover by Adam Hughes Wraparound Variant Cover by Mark Brooks.

There are a handful of free skins readily available on Marvel Rivals. MarvelRivals.gg has instructions on how to acquire the mentioned costumes – clicking on the internal links within the ‘How to Get’ tab reveals articles detailing the appropriate step-by-step process to earn the free Marvel Rivals costumes.

Research by NewZoo states that 45% of Overwatch 2 players who stopped playing in December 2024 switched to Marvel Rivals.

Marvel Rivals is reinforcing its stance on competitive integrity by condemning smurfing – which is the act of making a new account with the intent of playing with lower ranked players. Players can now report others for smurfing; the exact method of determining whether an account is a smurf has not been publicly revealed, but there have been multiple instances of successful ban implementations. 

According to a messaging board, numerous players received HWID bans across their various accounts. HWID stands for hardware identification, and a HWID ban is a permanent restriction that prohibits the player from accessing the video game, even on a new computer or with a new account. The ban is connected to the unique hardware identifiers of the banned individual device. 

Smurfing is included in “Negative Behavior” options within the report menu. Other negative behavior offenses include throwing, colluding, bussing, and exploiting bugs, all of which are considered cheating.

“Smurfs in Marvel Rivals are ruining the game. Seriously, I queue up for 10 matches, and at least 6 of them are filled with smurfs just farming low-rank players. It’s actually insane how common it is,” one player shared. The sentiment was shared by many others.

There are a handful of free skins readily available on Marvel Rivals. MarvelRivals.gg has instructions on how to acquire the mentioned costumes – clicking on the internal links within the ‘How to Get’ tab reveals articles detailing the appropriate step-by-step process to earn the free Marvel Rivals costumes.

Research by NewZoo states that 45% of Overwatch 2 players who stopped playing in December 2024 switched to Marvel Rivals.