Marvel Rivals introduced its newest season, The Mystery of Thebes, in a livestream earlier today, which will add the new characters Jubilee and The Hood into the game. The cinematic trailer was followed by the routine dev vision video where creative director Guangguang and lead combat designer Zhiyong go over balance changes and new team-up abilities, but this update was anything but routine. In addition to overhauling the Team-Up system (more on that later), they’ve almost completely reworked Black Widow’s mechanics.
In a game where most heroes have generally similar power levels, Black Widow has consistently been the least powerful character on the roster. As a sniper, she’s in a delicate position where the developers know that boosting her damage too high can quickly make her frustratingly overpowered. But since the rest of her ability kit is underwhelming, she’s never been a meta pick, and some players even get mad when you select her in a competitive game.
Now, she’s completely different. Her damage has been reduced, but her fire rate has been greatly increased, giving her gun a more of a mid-range, semi-automatic feel. Her old ultimate ability has become a standard ability on her toolbar, and her stamina costs for sprinting and super jumping have been eliminated. She has a new ability that launches her towards enemies and slams her gauntlets into the ground. She also has a new Ultimate, which allows her to aim down the scope of her rifle and temporarily transform it back into the sniper it used to be. The new sniper has increased damage, a larger hitbox, and can pierce enemies. While it won’t one-shot any foes, it requires much less skill to land a hit and lasts for 20 seconds or until you use all six of her shots.
Black Widow’s new ult in Marvel Rivals season 9.
While this is a major shift for Black Widow players, the next change is huge for everyone else: Team-Ups are changing entirely. It’s the mechanic that makes Marvel Rivals really stand out amongst its peers, adding new mechanics or buffs if two players on the same team play compatible characters. After a while, however, the developers admit it’s been “uninspired,” for a while, saying they were adding and subtracting team-ups just for the sake of checking boxes in a new update. Season 9 takes it much further, overhauling the system altogether.
“Now, every single hero will possess two completely independent Team-Up Ability loadouts,” Zhiyong says. “The abilities granted by these loadouts vary; some are entirely new abilities, some are entirely new standalone abilities, while others replace an existing base ability.”
These new Team-Ups can be swapped out whenever you swap your character out before matches, between rounds, or when you die and return to the spawn room. In an example clip, Black Panther chooses between Team-Ups with Magik and Storm. Each Team-Up also now has a base effect and an enhanced effect. The base effect gives each player the Team-Up’s core mechanic, but it is active regardless of whether the Team-Up partner is actually on your team. Going back to the above example, Black Panther can use his Team-Up ability with Magik regardless of whether she’s on the team. But if Magik is present, his ability gets its enhanced effect, granting it a significant boost in power, sometimes producing alternate effects entirely.
To exemplify further, the video shows off the Hulk’s new Team-Up effects. His new Team-Up ability with Captain America, Incredible Leap, allows him to jump up and slam into the ground to damage nearby enemies. It also reduces his cooldowns based on how depleted his health is. But if Cap is on the same team, the enhanced effect means Incredible Leap does more damage and adds a debuff that makes foes take more damage.
“We have been holding our tongue on this version update for so long, and we couldn’t be happier to finally talk about it,” Guangguang says. “We actually started planning our Team-Up overhaul just under a year ago. Over the last few seasons, we’ve been closely following the community’s discussions regarding Team-Ups, and honestly, the pressure has been immense.”
Zhiyong also says the development team will constantly be monitoring the interactions between all of the game’s new Team-Up abilities and be on standby to roll out rapid balance patches if needed – something the team doesn’t do often. It’s a pretty significant shake-up – here’s hoping the update doesn’t break the game.
These changes will be implemented when Season 9 starts on Friday, July 10. You can read the full Season 9 patch notes here. For more Marvel Rivals, check out the newest playable character: Jubilee.
