Marvel Rivals Season 3 Banks on Blade, Phoenix, Shorter Seasons Restoring Excitement to the Hero Shooter
Season 3 is a major turning point for the hero shooter, marking the start of its new two-month seasons and the start of the era where we'll be getting new heroes every month (one at the start of the season and one at midseason). Previously, seasons were about three months long, with new heroes coming out roughly every six weeks. The new cadence is an aggressive pace for expanding the game's roster and threatens to keep the metagame churning even faster, assuming those new heroes are relevant at launch.
It's once again a high-stakes season for Rivals, which has been bleeding active players since launch. Based on SteamDB data, the start of each new half-season brings in fewer players than the previous (e.g. fewer players joined for season 2.5 than for 2.0).
More concerningly, even the the start of each half-season doesn't bring in enough players to reach the lowest point from a full season ago: Season 2.0's peak count of 315,000 sits below season 1.0's low point of 331,000 players, and season 2.5's peak of 190,000 is just below the season 1.5 valley of 196,000. That means the start of new seasons -- the most exciting moments for the game -- are losing their ability to bring in new players or bring old players back. Steam numbers don't include console players, but it's difficult to imagine the story there looking much different.
Rivals is probably hoping that the official launch of two long-awaited heroes and a faster seasonal rotation will reverse that trend. Here's everything we know about Marvel Rivals season 3.0 so far.
When does season 3 start?
Marvel Rivals season 3.0 is scheduled to start on Friday, July 11 UTC. Typically, this involves servers going down for a few hours around midnight PT before being turned back on for the new season in the very early morning.
Marvel/Screenshot by Adam Benjamin
New Marvel Rivals heroes
It's finally happening! After half a year of being rumored additions to the roster, Jean Grey and Blade are officially joining the party. Jean Grey, wielding the powerful Phoenix Force, joins at season start. While we'll have to wait another day for a hero trailer to see her kit and abilities, the devs teased Phoenix's AOE damage through a chain-reaction mechanic and her mobility. They also said that Phoenix's ultimate deals massive damage and gets rid of enemy summons on the battlefield -- great news if you're facing down any combination of Namor's turrets, Moon Knight's ankhs, Peni's nests and Rocket's beacon (the latter of which have a team-up together).
Rivals continues to make Blade fans wait, as that hero won't be added to the roster until season 3.5. But at least that's only a month away under the new season structure.
Rivals season 3 balance changes
Rivals devs gave us a quick breakdown of the upcoming balance changes, though we're still waiting on full details from official patch notes. Here's the quick breakdown, with any confirmed details in parentheses.
Buffs:
Venom
Thing (gains a new ability to jump to enemies, possibly knocking down fliers)
Namor (primary fire)
Scarlet Witch (ultimate)
Invisible Woman (healing efficiency)
Mantis (healing and ultimate utility)
Nerfs:
Emma Frost
Iron Man (poke potential)
Punisher (turret)
Mister Fantastic (survivability)
Loki (ultimate charge)
Ultron
Phoenix adds some literal firepower to Wolverine's attacks with the new team-up.
Marvel/Screenshot by Adam Benjamin
Team-up changes
Rivals is adding two new team-ups, tacking heroes onto two existing ones and removing two others (Storming Ignition and ESU Alumnus) from the game. It's also nerfing another. Here's the quick rundown:
New -- Primal Flame: Phoenix anchors to add damage over time and lifesteal to Wolverine's attacks after his leap.
New -- Ever-Burning Bond: Human Torch anchors to let Spider-Man shoot a burning web with a flaming tracer. (The flaming tracer stacks with Spidey's regular tracers, devs said.)
Updated -- Symbiote Shenanigans: Adds Hela, giving her Soul Drainer Hel Sphere slowing tendrils.
Updated -- Stark Protocol: Adds Squirrel Girl, giving her an explosive, homing gauntlet.
Updated -- Guardian Revival: Devs said they'd be nerfing some element of the Guardians' team-up.
Other things coming in season 3
The battle pass is getting some adjustments to account for shorter seasons. Battle passes still offer 10 skins, but you'll earn tokens at a faster rate to make it easier to progress through the entire battle pass in the shorter time period. Daily missions are also going away, with weekly missions shifting to permanent quests instead of being time-limited. Seasonal missions that offer large batches of tokens are also being added.
Rivals devs also announced a new competitive mode coming in season 3.5 but said we'd have to wait for any details about it.
The game is also adding accessories (which appear to be animated stickers that float above the KO notifications), new chroma options and visual effects for ultimate abilities. Perhaps the nicest quality of life change is the ability to mix & match MVP animations with any skins, instead of having certain MVP animations locked to specific skins.
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