Marvel Rivals Beginner Guide: 5 Tips for Getting Started
Marvel Rivals is a new hero shooter that pits teams of Marvel heroes and villains against each other to compete for objectives. If you’ve ever wanted to see Black Widow team up with Magneto to take on Captain America and Loki, your time has come.
Competitors follow in gaming footsteps Overwatch 2inspired by Team Fortress 2 and other games that came before it. If you’ve played any of these previous games, you’ll probably jump into the game quickly – the objective-based gameplay and general characters will be familiar. The third-person perspective may take some getting used to, and the destructible environments may add enough chaos to disorient even experienced gamers, but it shouldn’t take long to get used to and feel at ease in combat.
It doesn’t matter if you haven’t invested hundreds or thousands of hours in PvP shooters. When I first started playing Overwatch, I had no idea what was going on. But after thousands of hours, I have a completely different understanding of the game. Marvel Rivals can feel overwhelming at first, but the key is to focus on one part of the game at a time until it becomes second nature. Soon you’ll be looking forward to plays you didn’t even notice, winning for your team and feeling the full thrill of the game.
There’s a lot to get used to, but here’s a list of Marvel Rivals tips to get you started quickly.
First, find your hero
The best way to get into the game is to find one or two heroes that you really like and stick with them for a long time. It allows you to maintain more consistency from game to game, thus reducing some of the confusion. Once you master your character’s movements and abilities, you have less information to digest. Instead, you can use your extra brainpower to sift through things like “What do the enemy sounds mean?” “Where do I go on this map?” and “How do I see through all these particle effects?”
Maybe you go into the game saying, “I want to play as Spider-Man,” because you really like Spider-Man and the other characters on the roster aren’t particularly important to you. Live your internet dreams, my friend. But if you’re not sure which hero to play when you start the game, I highly recommend trying out each hero, even if it’s just within a practice range, so you can understand how each character operates. Find one or two characters and abilities that best suit the hero you want to be. Check out my Marvel Rivals Heroes and Characters Guide for more in-depth advice.
Rivals launches with 33 heroes, so you’ll have plenty to choose from.
Focus on your unique abilities
At any given time in Marvel Rivals, you’ll have a lot of information to consider: where your six opponents are, what abilities each of them have available, and whether any teammates or enemies will be available for the fight. Their ultimate ability, where the fight is taking place, whether the fight is actually over or still unresolved, and whether destructible environments will respawn in front of you.
Don’t worry about that for now. When you start playing the game, learn the details of your abilities in the early game. Find out which ones are better to open and which ones you need to save to escape a bad situation. Try using them in different sequences and situations: when would Loki’s doppelgänger be useful as a means of positive teleportation, and when would it be best to give yourself an escape button?
The results from one game to another won’t be exactly the same, but you’ll start to find patterns that will tell you how to get the most out of your heroes and how to best contribute to your team’s victory.
The practice range is useful for mastering your hero’s equipment.
Practice games of push and pull
One of the defining characteristics of hero shooters is the ebb and flow of gameplay, which gives them a different feel than Call of Duty deathmatch. When your team gains an advantage in map position, health, or ultimate abilities, you can push more aggressively toward the enemy team…at least until you run out of those resources, or the other team turns the tables. At that point, you’ll have a brief window to regain safety, replenish those strengths and push again. Rinse and repeat until a team is eliminated.
Sometimes the push or pull trigger is obvious. Maybe your Doctor Strange just shocked the entire enemy team with his ultimate ability (Push!), or maybe the enemy Scarlet Witch is trying to blow up your team with her ultimate ability (pull). But there are some little things you can only learn through trial and error. Don’t use your Iron Man ultimate skill when enemy Magneto may have his ultimate skill. Once you see Adam Warlock’s damage-diluting Soul Bond ability ends, it means he has a hard time keeping allies alive through significant damage – so go for it!
Remember the goal
Rivals is an objective-based game, whether the goal is to capture a mission area, push a payload around the map, or both. Kills can help your team make progress toward an objective, but it won’t win you the game outright. Beware of the dreaded post-cap (where one player completes the objective while the enemy team is distracted elsewhere). Once you have a handle on your abilities and their constant ebb and flow, you need to keep your eyes on the goal.
With this setup, Loki can deal damage and heal while playing it safe, but quickly teleport to the target if an enemy threatens to capture it.
Accept that not all games are winnable and focus on the fun stuff
Even if you master the plot, learn how to follow the flow of combat and remain constantly alert to your objectives, you’ll still lose some games. It doesn’t matter. In any competitive game, you trade wins and losses.
Sometimes you’ll have a great game, but lose it because your Venom will die repeatedly for 5 minutes in a 1v6. Other times, you won’t be able to hit the side of the Hulk, but you’ll still win because your team’s Magik players eviscerate the opponent without dying once. That’s part of the experience.
Try to focus on the things that make the game fun for you. For me, it’s all about learning and mastering new heroes—and thankfully, the game gave me nearly three dozen at launch. For you, that might be playing with friends (highly recommended) or playing as Spider-Man for the entire game, even if enemy Namor feels impossible to kill. Whatever it is, focus on the fun stuff, and remember that it’s ultimately just a video game starring aliens, mutants, gods, and a regular guy with a bow.
For more information on Marvel Rivals, check out my Hands-on experience with Captain America and Bucky and my depth A guide to finding your characters and heroes.
