“Marvel Rivals positively had an affect on us in lots of other ways,” Overwatch 2 director Aaron Keller mentioned throughout a panel on the 2026 Sport Builders Convention on Friday. Whereas Keller did not point out the favored Overwatch 2 competitor whereas speaking about Blizzard’s efforts to revitalize its multiplayer shooter, a fan introduced it up within the Q&A on the finish of the panel. And he gamely tackled the query.
“I feel one of many largest ones was seeing the quantity of pleasure that new gamers to Rivals had for this large drop of heroes,” Keller mentioned. “It acquired us speaking about, hey, what if we may simply drop 30 new heroes into Overwatch? What would the participant response to that be? As a result of it nearly felt like the discharge of that sport was one thing like that.”
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In comparison with most dwell service video games, Marvel Rivals’ launch roster and subsequent replace cadence have been intense—it has 47 characters as of this writing, simply three shy of Overwatch 2. Blizzard’s had a decade to hit that quantity; Marvel Rivals did not launch till late 2024.
