Latest news with #Season3.5
Time of India
14-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
When is Blade coming in Marvel Rivals? Release data, role, abilities, and more!
(Image via NetEase Games) The long-awaited arrival of Blade in Marvel Rivals is finally happening. The Daywalker, who's been teasing fans with subtle appearances since Season 1, is now slicing his way into the game with the Season 3.5 update. From leaked ability details to a confirmed release window, here's everything you need to know about Blade's entrance into the Marvel multiplayer arena. When Is Blade Releasing in Marvel Rivals? While Blade was officially revealed during the Marvel Rivals Season 3 trailer, he won't be available at launch. Instead, NetEase has slated his debut for the Season 3.5 update, which drops on August 8, 2025. This mid-season addition follows earlier teases on the Birnin T'Challa map, where Blade was spotted in a mysterious sleep chamber before vanishing in a later patch, signaling his awakening. Blade's Role: Aggressive DPS Duelist Based on leaks, Blade is built for aggressive, close-combat duels and high burst damage. Players can switch between Dracula's Sword and a Hunting Gun, adapting to close-quarters brawls or long-range skirmishes on the fly. Leaked Abilities: Blade's Full Kit While the official reveal trailer hasn't dropped yet, dataminers have uncovered Blade's potential ability lineup: 1. Blade Chopper (Primary – Sword) Slash enemies with Dracula's Sword to deal solid melee damage. 2. Hunting Gun (Primary – Gun) Switch to a shotgun-style firearm that fires explosive fragmentation rounds at range. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Concentrated Siberian Ginseng Extract 2oz Superior Ginseng Undo 3. Damage Block (Alt Fire – Sword) Enter a defensive stance with your sword to block frontal damage. 4. Step and Chop (Shift) Dash forward. With the gun: apply healing reduction. With the sword: apply slow to enemies. 5. Ultimate – Dracula's Wrath (Q) Unleash a cinematic sword charge that slashes everything in your path and leaves a damaging trail behind. 6. Blood Liberation (E – Buff) Activate vampiric mode. You can't be healed by allies but regenerate health by dealing damage. Bonus: Cloak & Dagger Team-up? One intriguing leak mentions a team-up ability with Cloak & Dagger, though specifics are still under wraps. If true, Blade could offer some tactical duo-play potential in coordinated matches. Blade's entry into Marvel Rivals has been a long time coming, and if the leaks are accurate, he could be one of the most dynamic characters in the game yet. With a mix of lifesteal, burst damage, and hybrid weapon play, he's a dream pick for DPS mains. August 8 can't come soon enough. For real-time updates, scores, and highlights, follow our live coverage of the India vs England Test match here. Catch Rani Rampal's inspiring story on Game On, Episode 4. Watch Here!
Time of India
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Marvel Rivals Season 3 roadmap explored
Image via NetEase Games. It's just a matter of a few hours until Season 3 'The Abyss Awakens' gets released in Marvel Rivals. Just like the previous seasons in this popular hero-shooter title, Season 3 will also bring a lot of brand new features, weapons, maps, events, game modes, and many more stuff. Fans were already hyped up with the upcoming season. And now to take the hype to a whole new level, NetEase Games has just revealed the Season 3 roadmap as well. Marvel Rivals reveals Season 3 roadmap Recently, the official Twitter handle of Marvel Rivals has revealed the roadmap of Season 3. In this tweet, everything is explained, in terms of upcoming events, new heroes, a huge array of brand new skins , the seasonal battle pass, and many more things. — MarvelRivals (@MarvelRivals) Season 3 in Marvel Rivals will be dropped in the game on July 11, 2025, whereas the server maintenance will begin at 2 AM PDT on the same day. The downtime will run around 2-3 hours, and during this period, players won't be able to access the game. Even if the downtime runs longer, the developers have assured that the server will return eventually. Here is the entire Season 3 roadmap in Marvel Rivals in a glimpse: Date Content July 11 New playable hero: Phoenix (Jean Grey) New map: Klyntar: Celestial Husk Season 3 Battle Pass launch Milano Repair Logs event begins Free Symbiote Storm costume July 18 Summer Swimsuit special event July 25 New team-up: The Thing & Human Torch- Fantastic Four: First Steps collaboration begins August 1 Phoenix Demon skin for Magik- Phoenix Panther skin for Black Panther August 8 Season 3.5 officially launches By looking at the roadmap of Season 3, it can easily be said that NetEase Games will not be leaving us immediately, as it will continue adding brand new content each week. Season 3 will see Marvel Rivals implementing a new 2-month seasonal format, whereas the midseason update due to be released in the next month, along with one hero release each month. Talking about new heroes, the upcoming playable character of July is going to Phoenix, whereas Blade will take entry into the game on August 8, with the arrival of Season 3.5. There is no surprise that the launch date of Season 3 will bring the majority of the content, with the likes of the battle pass, a new map named Klynter, and other staff. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like My family & I lost S$500,000 to a scam. Taking responsibility for it was hard, but it helped me grow CNA Read More Undo On July 18, Marvel Rivals will launch the Summer swimsuit special event on the occasion of the recent summersuit special issue of Marvel Comics. Along with it, Marvel Rivals will also celebrate the release of The Fantastic Four: First Steps by releasing Fantastic Four collaboration on July 25. It seems Marvel Rivals fans are up for a huge treat with the arrival of Season 3 'The Abyss Awakens' on July 11, 2025. Read More: The brand new Accessories System in Marvel Rivals Season 3 explained For real-time updates, scores, and highlights, follow our live coverage of the India vs England Test match here. Catch Manika Batra's inspiring story on Game On, Episode 3. Watch Here!
CNET
02-07-2025
- Entertainment
- CNET
Marvel Rivals Season 3: Our First Look at Phoenix Had Me Screaming 'WHAT?!'
As Marvel Rivals gets ready to kick off season 3 next week, we're getting our first glimpse at some of the upcoming changes. And, with respect to my poor beleaguered Blade bros, the biggest news for me is that Jean Grey, original member of the X-Men and sometimes terror of the cosmos, is joining the roster as Phoenix. There's plenty more coming, including Blade in Season 3.5 next month, but Phoenix is the headliner for me, and here's our first look at what she can do. Phoenix's abilities in Marvel Rivals Phoenix joins as yet another duelist -- an already oversaturated role, but one that feels appropriate for her. She brings a mix of area-of-effect damage that can help chew through groups of enemies as well as mobility that lets her flit around the battlefield to find flank angles. Phoenix's primary fire appears to instantly apply damage to enemies with no travel time (aka hitscan) and apply some kind of flame stacks to opponents, represented by up to three flame icons above their characters. In the trailer, heroes appeared to detonate when hit at full stacks, releasing a burst of additional damage around them. Her alternate fire sends a rapid-fire burst of flame that creates a series of small explosions, similar to Hela's alternate fire. In the trailer, we see it used on a group of enemies with maximum flame stacks to detonate everyone and effectively burst down the entire opposing team at once. I can't tell you exactly what's happening here, but whatever it is, it looks fun. Marvel/Screenshot by Adam Benjamin Her first ability is a quick dash. In the trailer, Phoenix uses it to jump backward, dodging an enemy Venom looking to crash down on her. Her second ability appears to be a limited-duration flight, allowing Phoenix to freely fly around the battlefield for a few seconds. The flight is on a resource meter that recharges while Phoenix isn't flying. Phoenix's ultimate is what made me scream. I've watched the trailer several times and my best description of how it appears to work is, "You crash to the ground, kill everyone in your way and explode." And I mean everyone -- in the trailer, we see Hela in her ultimate, wherein she flies up into the sky and her health jumps up to 1,000 HP, get erased when Phoenix ults through her. In addition to also killing Rocket and Psylocke in one shot, the ultimate also clears deployables like Rocket's rez beacon and Peni's nest while whittling Peni herself and Groot down to a sliver of health in the explosion. Lore accurate Phoenix? Marvel/Screenshot by Adam Benjamin A mobile hitscan hero who with a stacking mechanic and a meteoric ultimate? Yeah, sign me up. Between this and Overwatch 2's Freja, this longtime support/strategist main may have officially turned into a damage/duelist main. 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 What about Blade? Haven't we waited enough? Rivals continues to make Blade fans wait, since 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 In the Dev Visions vol. 7 video, 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. Rivals needs a win Season 3 is a major turning point for the hero shooter, marking the start of its new two-month seasons where we'll be getting new heroes every month -- one at the start of the season and one at midseason. 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. That's important because Rivals 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. (For example, fewer players joined for season 2.5 than for 2.0.) Most games lose players over time, but for a live-service game, that kind of consistent drop is bad news because it means fewer players coming back each season to spend money on battle passes and cosmetics. And while Rivals was a hit at launch, the game has struggled with player retention, whether it's due to in-game toxicity, role-based infighting, frustrating metagames or just generally losing the luster of being a brand-new game. How do you fix that? Not easily, that's for certain. But adding an iconic member of the original X-Men and giving her fun gameplay in the form of mobility and unique mechanics can sure help. I'll tell you this much: It's working on me.
