Marvel Rivals has made a huge announcement, and to be honest, it’s a landmark victory that everyone would notice. The hero shooter game has officially declared to have won the Grand Award at the PlayStation Partner Awards 2025. No doubt they are having a party. For everyone who doesn’t know, it was basically Sony distributing its biggest awards to the games that are its partners, and Marvel Rivals took the best one home. The developers at NetEase showed their gratitude by thanking PlayStation for their support and Famitsu for the news coverage. They promised to put a twist on the original Marvel characters while bringing them to life. The tweet wound up with ‘Let’s keep igniting the battles ahead,’ which is a very apt phrase for a game that is nothing but superhero fighting.
But one thing about gaming communities – they exist mainly for fun and never just for news. The announcement tweet was akin to setting off a firework in a room teeming with players. The replies? A wild mix of congratulations, requests, and some… really odd suggestions. It is a complete atmosphere.
From the very beginning, there were players who were just very happy. The replies were filled with ‘Well deserved,’ ‘Congratulations 🎊’ and ‘Deserved’ from people like Jordan Feliciano and HM Brandon. That is the nice stuff, the basic community showing appreciation for a game they like. Jeremy Barela commented ‘Congrats!! Well deserved 👏’ – direct, clean, and you love to see it.
After that… oh my God, the team began to chant. It was like a perfectly orchestrated shout. one gamer stated ‘Give us all more units to celebrate.’ another person asked ‘where the free units at.’ one more wrote ‘Give ps plus subscribers a free skin for this!!’ It turned out to be the constant mention of ‘units’ which is the in-game currency. User grand_m4ster stated: ‘Glad for you. Let’s celebrate it with free 2500 units.’ User Callmecxnt was making a good argument, as he said, ‘They won with our votes, they can show appreciation by giving us currency. How can I be wrong?’ It is that typical gamer economy – a big win for the devs should also mean a little something for the players, right? Even BLOCKXS.COM joined in, saying in a joking manner, ‘Can I get a trophy too?’
Among the currency quests, a few outlandish and rather detailed gameplay ideas popped up. One user, GalaxyReview101, proposed a… different concept for Deadpool: ‘Please make DeadPool versatile in rolls simply because he has triple personalities. Let each personality get a role.’ That is a quite big commitment to character lore. An additional gamer, zachjjk, begged, ‘Keep Deadpool a tank 🙏,’ illustrating the ongoing dispute about how each character should be portrayed. There was also the visual effects suggestion from MRivalsLeaksBR, who proposed an entire icy overhaul for Cloak & Dagger’s Winter skin ultimate with frozen river effects and sparkles. Players really care, man!
Nonetheless, not everyone was for partying. One reply from ughbowdlerize was a sarcastic comment made at the expense of the PS that read, ‘Hardly an achievement considering the PS doesn’t have any games.’ Ouch! That was pretty harsh. But that is what the internet is really like, you could have one person disagreeing with every other opinion out there. There was even a short weird side-thread where users Kal_Sim24 and UltraZ70 were replying to the commenter asking ‘So where was this for MK?’ and clarifying ‘You are thinking of Moon Knight.’ The whole exchange was a brief and confusing detour that kind of got lost along the way.
On the whole though, the general attitude was that Marvel Rivals had been awarded a major thumbs-up. Winning a PlayStation Grand Award means more than just praising the game; it is telling everybody that the game is making some serious impacts in the area. Such a recognition from Sony to a game that is still building up its world and roster is really tremendous. It conveys the message to the potential players that this is not just another licensed cash-grab, but the platform itself is supporting the game in a massive way.
What does this mean for the future? The developers assured they will stick to the source material, which is a big plus for Marvel fans wanting their characters to be authentic. All the player feedback in the replies by the players – the requests for units, the skin ideas, and the role debates – is nothing but pure community engagement. No matter whether NetEase provides a celebratory gift of in-game currency or not, they are monitoring a committed player base for sure. The battles to come, as they have articulated the phrase, are not just in-game.
