Marvel Rivals put out their announcement about new scarlet witch emojis releasing on August 28th, 7 PM PDT, and it seems chaos of a sort is emerging — but not quite the sort of chaos anyone expected. The official tweet says, “Elevate your expressions,” “Let your emojis do the talking,” yet the players seem to be having a conversation that’s much more crucial than speaking about new digital stickers.
The responses seem to be weighed down by a unanimous sense of irritation. Take for instance @ZaneDrakkon, who in no particular urgency says, “Emoji’s are cool and everything but can we get some more accessories please?? There’s not very many of them and I don’t really use any of the characters they’re for.” Which, yeah… is a reasonable enough critique. Why is the game focusing on new emojis when the accessory lineup is so narrow? Stefan Wagner, aka “Marb007” does raise a decent point, “Hot takes: Stop making new emojis and focus on accessories instead?”
That is honestly just the tip of the iceberg. The comment section soon turns into a dumping ground for everyone to express their dissatisfaction with the game in general. @DeloreanVynil comments, “When are you reverting the team size change? All of my friends stopped playing rivals because we can’t play together anymore,” and, oof, talk about a bummer. The social aspect is huge in team-based shooters, and if your team can’t squad up, well, what’s really the point?
And then there’s @DominoLover99, who essentially drops the mic with, “I don’t wanna emotes, I want better matchmaking system on competitive!!!” followed by a crying face emoji, and well… “mood.” Totally mood. Ever since day one Marvel Rival’s competitive matchmaking has been a sore point and clearly the audience is tired of cosmetic changes when core gameplay features are so neglected.
Things only get worse with @Rodrigomatapato dragging the moderation team: “You guys are worrying about emoji, but I didn’t ban racist people, it’s been a month since they were reported and she’s still playing.” Yikes. That’s a strong claim about the reporting system being broken.
Those are strong words, and a host of other issues are piling up in the background. The character balance tweets are pouring in — @CManicYT rants about Magik’s HP being too low compared to everyone else and casually drops a huge paragraph about how “BP lil fast ass is 300 hp an he’s in and out, Iron Fist can heal himself to full health an he’s 300 hp, wolv is 350 an is crazy but magik getting 275 hp is RIDICULOUS???”… and like, he isn’t wrong? The HP imbalances between characters do seem kinda arbitrary.
Of course, there’s the whole bugs side of things — @friendedkarma19 is complaining about Jeff bugs that are “GAME BREAKING for Jeff who is already the worst hero in the roster” and mentions being a C3 Jeff main which, like, respect for sticking with an underpowered character but also pain.
What really proves how much this new game mode is being trashed is @speckrecon calling it EXTRA TRASH and another player saying they’ll leave every game they get with it. The community’s response is not great and the developers put work into this new mode.
Although a majority complain about this issue, some users are also chiming in with positive feedback—for instance @chillgamer2077, who remarks “Wanda is so cute 🥺. This skin alongside her emojis will be mine in 10 hours and 16 minutes,” which is adorable also because of the specific countdown. And then @ErsintheNorth is giving compliments stating that “She beated Jean in her own theme lol Scarlett is easily the prettiest woman in game” so at least some users are enjoying the look of the game.
On the other hand, they are all still requesting the same thing—stop worrying about more cosmetics and fix what’s broken. Relative to the emojis, @ruby_lyrics comments, “Does anyone use these lol,” which is a relatively reasonable question. Character-specific emojis are rarely used during matches.
This is not the only issue the community has with the game. The competitive community is dealing with the lack of balanced characters, bugs, and broken social features. And as a community, disbelief is the only emotion they can muster while being met with even more emojis. The games department for Marvel Rivals seems to be taking the games community for granted by responding with cosmetics instead of solving core issues.
It’s Marvel Rivals that the rest of us, especially the ones that enjoy hero-shooters, have been waiting for. At least, it looks like the game has some sort of potential. Keeping that in mind, the developers also need to take a few of these comments more seriously. We aren’t clamoring for vending machine cosmetics, Mariners want to have fun playing the game. While those emojis sparkle with charm, they fail to disguise the broken matchmaking and unbalanced characters.
The goodwill of the community will determine if live service games will thrive or fail. For the most part, players of Marvel Rivals have already been explicit about what they want to be prioritized. The developers, however, are hoped to be tuning in to these requests and addressing these issues, opposed to ignoring the feedback and releasing more vanity items. The game has a good underlying structure, but these core systems that aid in player retention and, more broadly, player enjoyment need much more attention. The competitive experience should come before the Scarlet Witch emoji set.
