Marvel Rivals is the second new hero shooter to arrive in beta form this month, following on from Sony’s Concord as another team-based multiplayer affair. This time though, it’s a full cross-platform release, with Xbox Series X and Series S joining PS5 and PC. Rivals also goes further in using the Unreal Engine 5 feature set, with Lumen global illumination and reflections, and features a third-person perspective of the titular heroes and villains that sets it apart from the likes of Overwatch. Early impressions suggest a more deeply ambitious game, but one that also comes with more profound technical challenges in its current form.
We’ve tested every platform to see how they compare, paying special attention to PS5, Series X and Series S to see how closely they manage to hold to the target 60fps – and in the case of the Series S, how much they sacrifice to get there with more modest hardware. Beyond that, how do these platforms hold up to the game running maxed out on PC, with Lumen GI and reflections set to ultra, and what technical gremlins lurk behind that beta badge?
Before we answer these questions, it’s worth looking at the state of play right now. After all, this is a beta in flux, with 21 characters and four map variants on offer during our testing. Developers NetEase Games are no strangers to genre giant Overwatch, having worked on creating versions of the title and other Blizzard releases for the Chinese market, and that comes across in the presentation: slick, snappy and broadly similar.
Beyond its comic book cast and newer tech, there are two key twists here. The first is the use of destructible environments, where it’s possible to chip away parts of the map to reveal new lines of sight or even remove routes entirely. Bridges break, chandeliers fall, and pillars and walls collapse. To see which parts are destructible, you simply hold right on the d-pad to raise an alternative x-ray view of the stage. All round, it’s a well-worked mechanic that adds an extra, chaotic dynamic to each map that doesn’t exist in Rivals’ rival titles.