I went into Marvel Rivals with the expectation that the hero shooter would feel like a giant reskin of Overwatch 2. During its alpha, there was a growing sentiment that NetEase had copied Blizzard's homework thanks to videos of Black Panther diving across maps like Genji or Hulk's two forms resembling D.Va and her mech. But after playing the closed beta for around six hours now, I'm starting to realise that the comparisons may have been an overstatement.
There's clearly some inspiration here, which makes sense considering work on Marvel Rivals began around 2019, arguably when the Overwatch hype was at its highest—I'd use Blizzard's work as a starting point for sure. While it's easy and helpful to compare characters from both games so new players can get a better understanding, Marvel heroes aren't a mirror image of the Overwatch ones. Instead, many similar abilities have been divided between various heroes.
