Marvel Rivals Highlights Season 1 Content, New Maps, Balance Changes & Streamer Mode In New Developer Vision

Marvel Rivals developer NetEase Games officially unveiled the upcoming season, Eternal Night Falls, in a fantastic new trailer spotlighting the arrival of Marvel's First Family, the Fantastic Four, who'll be coming as new playable characters. Marvel Rivals Season 1: Eternal Night Falls goes live across the servers on 10th January 2025 for consoles and PCs with a complete Battle Pass, new maps, new cosmetics, and more.

The developer released their third Developer Vision update video, posted to the game's YouTube channel hosted by Marvel Rivals creative director Guangguang, spotlighting some of the new content and balance changes arriving in the upcoming season. Additionally, they reiterated that they'll continue to address pressing and urgent challenges players have encountered since its launch in December 2024 and promptly clarify those issues while continuing to "refine" the game.

As mentioned before, Eternal Night Falls is the next season for the superhero team-based PVP shooter, continuing the overall story that began in Season 0: Dooms Rise as a sudden "Darkness" engulfs New York City. The Fantastic Four joins the roster as playable characters available for free to unlock as they join the battle to free the city from the clutches of Dracula, who looks to reign terror with his "army of vampiric creatures."

The story, which unfolds throughout the Eternal Night Falls season, finds Dracula acquiring control of the New York of the Present Timeline using the power of Chronovium and scatters the pages of the Darkhold as such. The only way to combat Dracula and prevent him from unleashing this dark doom is through "science and magic," which is when the Fantastic Four comes to the assistance of our Heroes.

This season will be three months in length, split into two halves of six to seven weeks, Guangguang confirmed, so players have plenty of time to complete missions and unlock rewards from the Battle Pass. As such, Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic and Sue Storm/Invisible Woman will launch in the first half of Season 1, while Johnny Storm/Human Torch and Ben Grimm/The Thing become available in the second half of the season.

Their arrival also marks the debut of three new playable maps centered around the new storyline and theme: the Empire of Eternal Night, for which the iconic Central Park, Midtown, and the Sanctum Santorum locations have been engulfed by this foreboding "Darkness." Empire of Eternal Night: Midtown, a Convoy map, and the new game mode, Doom Match: Sanctum Santorum, unlock in the first half; however, details on the other maps and game modes will be revealed closer to the second half's release.

Speaking of the Battle Pass, this season will feature a complete pass offering with "double the content" with ten new cosmetics, including costumes for Loki, the Scarlet Witch, and Wolverine. The Luxury Pass pricing is "set at 990 Lattice," and players will receive 600 Lattice and 600 Units upon completion; the developer has added a "unique mechanism" for the Battle Pass and Chrono Tokens, which ensures that the Luxury Pass never expires and "Tokens purchased with Lattice are retained" depending on specific conditions.

As for what balance changes are set to be deployed along with the Season 1: Eternal Night Falls launch, Marvel Rivals' Lead Combat Designer Zhiyong highlighted some key hero balance changes in the first half of Season 1. New hero balance changes include nerfs for Hela and Hawkeye, while Captain America and Venom will gain a buff to their combat kits and likewise for Storm and Wolverine, which should give them new opportunities to shine in specific team compositions.

Cloak & Dagger will also receive some much-needed improvements to elevate "their potential" and make them more valuable to their unique team compositions. Jeff the Baby Land Shark's Ultimate ability will be "fine-tuned" as the complete details for these new hero balance changes, and more will be outlined in the patch notes.

The Hero Pick and Win rates will be updated on the Marvel Rivals season to reflect Season 0, in which all PC and console stats will be merged for the Quickplay mode while Competitive mode will split stats, broken down by ranking for console and PC. Regarding Competitive mode, there will be new Ranked Adjustments coming to Marvel Rivals Season 1 as competitive ranks will be reset based on their standings at the end of Season 0, and players can be dropped in rankings by "seven divisions," meaning Platinum 1 players will be dropped to Silver 1 at the start of Season 1.

This paves the way for a brand new Competitive rank, Celestial, which is the next rank following Grandmaster and features three new divisions, whose inclusion is intended to "provide a seamless experience" for the game's top-ranked players. Lastly, other game additions and optimizations coming to the game include a new graphics option for higher framerates for competitive players, mouse support to improve its acceleration settings, and a Streamer Mode for Marvel Rivals streamers and content creators to take advantage of.