NetEase’s Marvel Rivals saw an absolutely massive launch, rapidly becoming one of the most-played free-to-play games when it released last year. However, after just 10 months on the market, the superhero hero shooter has lost hundreds of thousands of players.
Despite rapid updates with even more leaked heroes on the way, Marvel Rivals is seemingly struggling to keep a large number of casual players hooked into the game. Consistent updates bring more content every month, with Season 4.5 out now, but it seems to not be enough.
As reported by Forbes, Marvel Rivals player counts on Steam are still trending downwards, although the game is far from dead. On PC alone, the game has seen a massive loss of 85% of its players, but the game is still doing pretty well with 98,000 players concurrently playing the hero shooter on the platform.
This is a massive drop from the game’s peak concurrent player count of 644,000 players on January 2025. It’s a very noticable decline, a huge drop, but it’s worth noting that Steam is not the only way to play NetEase’s hero shooter.
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Alongside the game’s prominence on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4 and Xbox Series X, where player counts can not be tracked, Rivals is also playable in other forms on PC. While player counts on other PC platforms are likely very slim, the game can also be played on the Epic Games Store or via the game’s own launcher, the latter of which the majority of Chinese player use.
With this in mind, it’s far from doom and gloom for NetEase’s hero shooter, although it is a sign that the game’s bubble of popularity has burst. If the game continues to haemorrhage players as the game climbs to its second anniversary next year, then some worry is warranted, but with close to 100,000 players at all times on Steam alone, the game is in a very healthy place.
At the time of writing Marvel Rivals is currently enjoying its Season 4.5 update which brought the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, Daredevil, to the game with a wholly unique play style. Season 5 is expected to release on November 14th and is said to be love themed with the addition of new heroes Rogue and Gambit.
