Combining the Overwatch formula with the Marvel universe, NetEase Games has found the ideal recipe to attract the largest possible audience. Marvel Rivals had every chance of getting off to a good start, especially with a free-to-play system that only requires you to pay for skins. And indeed, the opening of its servers was well attended.
The Start of a Long Marathon
Marvel Rivals is now available after several months of anticipation and betas to refine the experience. The buzz around the hero-shooter was so great that everyone rushed to play the game as soon as the servers opened last night, so much so that the game peaked at over 440,000 concurrent players on Steam alone. This puts it in fourth place among the most-played games on Valve’s platform in the last 24 hours, just behind the eternal trio of PUBG, DOTA 2, and Counter-Strike 2.
And this is probably just the beginning, since we’re talking about the first few hours of play, at a time when Europe was still asleep. We’ll have to take a closer look at the game’s peak during its first weekend of operation, which is normally the time when a game gets the most traffic. Anyway, NetEase Games should celebrate this start-up, while preparing to enter the most difficult period of a game service: its follow-up.