Marvel Rivals dataminers are buzzing with excitement and skepticism as they uncover lists of potential future characters hidden within the game's code. However, both NetEase and Marvel have clarified that their focus is on developing the game rather than engaging in playful deception. The speculation intensified last month when dataminers began sharing names of potential heroes, some of which were quickly confirmed with the official announcement of the Fantastic Four. Yet, as more names surfaced, rumors spread that some might be decoys planted by the developers to mislead the community.
The Marvel Rivals community remains divided on the authenticity of these datamined characters. In a recent interview, we had the chance to address these rumors directly with Marvel Rivals producer Weicong Wu and Marvel Games executive producer Danny Koo. Wu emphasized the complexity of character design, stating, "So firstly we want to say that we don't recommend anybody to make adjustments to the files [of the game]. Also, you can see that for each character's design actually we come through a very complicated process and we make a lot of concepts, trials, prototypes, development, et cetera. So there could be some information left in the code, and it might mean that we have tried those directions and they may appear or may not appear in our future plans. And whether or not they will appear in our future pipeline is highly depending on what kind of gameplay experience our players would expect in our game."
Koo added a humorous analogy, likening the situation to finding a notebook of scratch work left behind: "If I could have a ten-year plan, it'd be great. But the team experimented with a lot of play styles, heroes. It was like there's someone doing scratch paperwork and then just left a notebook there, and someone [a dataminer] decided to open it with no context." When pressed about whether they were intentionally trolling dataminers, Koo firmly denied it, saying, "No. We would rather spend our time developing the actual game."
In the same discussion, we delved into the process of selecting new characters for Marvel Rivals. Wu and Koo explained that the team plans updates approximately a year in advance, maintaining a consistent schedule of new character releases every month and a half. NetEase first assesses the game's balance and variety, crafting a list of potential additions. Wu highlighted their strategy for maintaining balance: "Part of NetEase's strategy for achieving game balance is to focus less on aggressively tweaking existing characters to be perfectly fine-tuned, and more on adding new characters and experiences to keep things fresh, fill gaps, support characters that are a bit weak with new team abilities, or counter characters that might be a little too strong."
Once a list of possible characters is compiled, NetEase collaborates with Marvel Games to develop initial designs. They also consider community excitement and upcoming Marvel projects, such as films or comic arcs, to make final decisions. This approach explains the presence of numerous hero names in the code, reflecting the many ideas NetEase explores.
Marvel Rivals has been a hit since its launch, with each new character enhancing the game's appeal. The Human Torch and The Thing are set to join the roster on February 21. Additionally, Wu and Koo discussed the potential for a Nintendo Switch 2 release, which you can learn more about here.
