The Marvel Rivals development team has put out a new video under the name of Dev Vision, right? To tell you truly, it has so many surprises in it. The creative director has literally and figuratively opened the door wide with Volume 12, and Temporal Content is the Season 5.5 update, which will go live on December 12, that he has even disclosed everything that could be happening during the whole season. What’s new about it? More story, different gameplay, plus more exciting stuff to come. But the biggest news was the confirmation of Rogue being the next playable heroine and this time around, she is a Vanguard. Yes, you heard that right.
The community’s reaction was instant. The players rushed in with their great anticipation and a ton of precise queries. The phrase “VANGUARD ROGUE” was heard everywhere, showing that there is a strong demand among the gamers for a female character in the tanky role. One user, LilKitsune_009, shouted, “LFG SHE’S A VANGUARD 😭🙏,” to which we totally agree. Another user, CyanConure, replied, “I LOVE FEMALE VANGUARDS AHHH,” thereby expressing his feelings. This is a huge shift for team setups with the introduction of a new side for the upcoming front.
Nevertheless, the Dev Vision show did not limit itself to Rogue only. It was also a showcase of her eccentric powers. By ‘eccentric,’ I mean, the assumption that she is going to somehow give her enemies a “cutscene,” is the way that Bigwhoaaaong has put it. Grim_desires has provided a brief explanation and besides getting a little wild over her combo with Gambit being “insane for Frontline!” he has also mentioned Emma Frost (the other hero) getting “GROOT walls!?” The powers are going to be very imaginative, and the mixing of powers in such combos is for sure going to upset the meta. Additionally, there was a quick glimpse of winter skins which made JGRAnimation asking the question of who the nutcracker skin belonged to (the responses are mostly pointing towards Star-Lord aka Peter Quill).
Unavoidably, with every update announcement, the requests and complaints come in fast. Venusmile is looking for “where is the winter skin for rocket 😞” while XYacid3 is dreaming of an “Imortal beast skin for iron fist.” And DE are still miffed, justifying on Twitter “Because we could’ve gotten a snowstorm skin for Storm 🙄”. The skin debate is fierce among this player base; they know what they want.
Along with that, the talk about the balance issue also came in. Always the talk about balance. UnassumingHat who wasn’t expecting it saw Rogue’s debut as an opportunity to moan, “Oh great, another melee tank.” At the same time, a mini-debate about Magik was raging. One user, galloway_peyton, sounded like he was asking for a Magik buff, but the community was quick to shut him down. SDeathfuck replied, “if you think magik needs a buff in season 5 you gotta be like below gold lmao”. Ouch. The general view is that she is alright, maybe even strong. Others have already begun to speculate about the future with YureyYutsuna mentioning leaks that Ultron will be getting two drones. The speculation machine is always on.
One cannot forget the port beggars. It is a ritual. Itsmagomalvado slithered in saying, “Yet, still no Switch 2 port in sight.” It’s like clockwork, man. Every single time. Maybe someday.
The video also suggested a bit some other changes such as debugging of cooldowns that got flyingpigfraud cracking up with “30 SEC COOLDOWN LMAOOOOO”. That’s a really long time to wait in a fast-paced shooting game for a skill, so you can be sure that it is going to be a hot topic one day when the patch is released. A couple of players already want a third ban in the drafting phase, as SouthBeachJB reported, which is a sign of how seriously the competitive scene is taking these roster changes.
So what’s the conclusion? Put a big red X on December 12 because it is going to be a wild and fun update for Marvel Rivals. The new Vanguard in the shape of Rogue with what appears to be movie-like skills, a big batch of festive skins, and the usual round of balance changes which will keep the arguments alive for weeks. Developers are definitely not deaf to the noise but instead, they are nurturing the hype by these comprehensive Dev Vision releases. It’s a great time to be a Rivals player even if you are still wishing for that Rocket Raccoon holiday sweater. The change of the meta is coming, especially with the new patch setting the stage. This level of ongoing support is a hallmark of major live-service games on platforms like PlayStation and Xbox.
