Marvel Rivals developers at NetEase have admitted that recent nerfs to ranged heroes within the multiplayer game have caused them to become near-useless compared to close-quarters characters. 

As the Marvel Rivals Season 7 release time quickly approaches, everyone is looking forward to the game’s latest hero: Black Cat. As a close-range hero, the iconic Spider-Man character will likely tear through the hero shooter on launch, especially now that ranged characters have been massively nerfed. 

In a dev blog to fans, lead combat designer Zhiyong confirmed that the team will now be more careful when applying nerfs specifically to ranged characters. While being at range often offers an advantage in many scenarios, the developer admitted that recent nerfs obviously went too far. 

“We already nerfed some ranged heroes in Season 6.5,” the developer said. “And based on the combat data, their win rates have shown a marked decline. So, we will exercise caution in adjusting the ranged heroes.”

Despite this, the developer did confirm that Winter Soldier, a character that works at range and in close-quarters, will be nerfed for Marvel Rivals Season 7. For a full list of nerfs and buffs for the upcoming season, check them out here. 

As a competitive PvP game, Marvel Rivals is constantly going through buffs and nerfs, some good and others bad. That’s both the pro and the con of a live-service multiplayer game, an evolving back-and-forth as new characters and features come and balance twists. 

Right now, ranged heroes have been stomped (although this has become a rather long-running issue over the past few seasons), but eventually they’ll likely be more overpowered. Nevertheless, it’s clear that the Marvel Rivals dev team is aware of the issues that ranged players are facing, and hopefully will be able to bring a more cohesive balance to the game as more patches release throughout Season 7.