The Narrative Value of Marvel Rivals

In the domain of live service, I find narrative akin to the mascot of a greasy burger joint, a "smiling face" slapped on a soulless product in the name of retention. But this time, things are different.

Thus, I found myself loading up this yet-another-live-service hero shooter Marvel Rivals, only to come out, after many hours of play, deeply burrowed in the questions of its lore. Questions like, "Why are some of the characters from different timelines? What's Jeff the Land Shark doing in this game? Why is Wakanda a planet? Why is this season about vampires? How is it that not one but two Doctor Dooms are responsible for everything happening in the game?"

Live-service hero shooters rarely have a coherent narrative. At least, that's the anecdote. So it was a slight culture shock to see how well-developed and interconnected the lore is in Marvel Rivals – it reads as if it jumped right out of a comic book page! Personally, I haven't seen narrative integrated like this since perhaps Overwatch, or even Team Fortress 2.

Overwatch, even if a premium product at the time of its release, put out a bunch of animated shorts and comic book tie-ins to expand the narrative of its world. Yet, it still felt disconnected from the core game experience because it wasn't integrated into the game itself. Rather, it was an add-on, a supplementary experience to the main game, something you'd find on your YouTube feeds as you doomscroll, and — if you're curious enough, or have some time to kill — click on and check out.

But Marvel Rivals contrasts this experience by using narrative as a power source to fuel the "why" of everything happening in the game, like an Arc Reactor powering an Iron Man suit.

In most live-service shooters with narrative, you're often left to wonder what the occasion is when a new event pops up, who the newly introduced characters are, or what role they play in relation to the setting. Unfortunately, the lack of ludonarrative coherence leaves little to wonder about.

What information you had left you feeling incomplete, or worse, it would likely demotivate you from seeking answers yourself. What answers you do find are either general (taking the form of Fandom pages, and character biographies that reveal something about their overarching role), or exactly what you're looking for (comic book series either out of sale or no longer available, or official YouTube clips kept unlisted for reasons unknown). Kept away from the player's immediate reach, the established narrative isn't given the chance to enrich the games with the same "why" value. Were it allowed the time to shine in the spotlight, even if just for a little while, it would've left quite the imprint on players.

As I write this, Marvel Rivals is hosting a second season (labelled Season 1), with a new battle pass laden with vampire-related content. It turns out that Count Dracula wants blood. As vampires engulf New York in a crimson darkness, the city's heroes attempt to fend off the invasion. The great minds of Reed Richards and Tony Stark work out the kinks of assembling a device capable of using the Montesi Formula to destroy vampires. What our beloved heroes don't know is that this is a mutual arrangement between Drac and Doctor Doom, whose ominous plans involve the Darkhold... plans that Doctor Strange and Moon Knight put to rest in the last season.

Interestingly, the answers to what's happening in the game's world comes wrapped within the rewards you earn. So, if you were to know what I just revealed about the season's story, you must inch your way through either the battle pass, or the event challenges, and obtain their final rewards: Gallery Cards. These cards come with short stories that reveal the happenings within the Marvel Rivals universe. Even the limited-time events (like the Lunar New Year event) had a surprise story, featuring various characters you'd recognize!

Right here, Marvel Rivals is already miles ahead of the competition. The game actively places the story — no matter how implicit — in front of the player, allowing it time to shine, but not without its caveats! Being a game, it's a genius choice to make the narrative a reward.

For the first time in a long time, narrative is no longer treated as a tack-on to contextualize something. Here, the narrative has a central purpose that drives every component of the game. It not only dimensionalizes the reason for the player to attempt challenges and to progress through the battle pass but also represents itself as a mark of the player's Hulk-like efforts to finish them. It makes the game make sense and pulls us closer to the characters in whom we take an active interest. Thanks to this, if you came into the game purely because a character you like is in it, chances are there's something about them within the metagame you can now explore, not just in the core gameplay.

The story is now not just a thrown-in feature... it's a gift of achievement shedding light on the fascinating journeys our favourite characters are going on!

As such, with every Gallery Card coming with its own story, the sense of novelty and discovery within the narrative strengthens the anticipation of obtaining new stories as a reward. It's exactly what players like me can anchor ourselves to, so we can connect with the player base in ways we'd hoped. It's a rare example of a studio reminding itself where the faithful followers of its intellectual property come from.

This is no different from what Riot Games attempted with Netflix's Arcane. With a high-profile cast and a snazzy story to go with it, the show went on to become one of 2024's top ten streamed shows in the world, grabbing Emmy nominations left, right, and centre. Despite incurring a net loss, the show rose to the top of the charts in over 60 countries, resuscitated League of Legends with a 50% increase in its player base at the time of Season 1's release, and quite possibly generated high volumes of organic interest in the League of Legends brand among consumers who previously weren't aware of it. To quote Riot's CEO:

“[...] people think we make things like Arcane to sell skins, when in reality we sell skins to make things like Arcane.”

This supports the ultimate argument of any creative pouring their heart and soul into the work: cultural impact takes precedence. Powerful, engaging narratives (often, in business, treated like chopped liver) are crucial to drive it forward.

It's what writers have argued about for eons, stressing that this level of dedication towards an abstract entity like narrative is not wasted effort, as most stakeholders would claim. Story has always been a core component of interactive entertainment, contributing to cultural development and impact. The jury's still out on whether games with seemingly absent narratives indeed possess a fraction of it, even if emergent or thematic in nature. But the point stands: it can drive interest, engagement, and even encourage subscriptions.

Since the time of Marvel Rivals' launch, the Fandom pages have seen an uptick in visitors, especially when new characters join the roster. The Fantastic Four, Magik, Luna Snow, the Invisible Woman's "Malice" alter ego… despite the implicitly perverse intentions I'm sure the visitors of those last couple of pages carry — pages that are trending as of this writing — the online community is experiencing a further change in how they perceive these geeky worlds of costumed critters and true believers.

As the world actively discusses the characters they play and the worlds they inhabit, the Marvel universe grows into a benevolent symbiote in their hearts and memories, planting its feet even firmer to the ground as the face of comic book culture among many. Time will tell if there's still room for giants like DC to make a similar dent, but they'd better act fast.

As I flush down hours of my time in the game, I'm brought closer to the possibility of becoming their five-dollar goldfish. It's all thanks to the developers and writers who respected the source material and adapted it so well, that I imagine the loyal fanbase feels right at home. Further proof that staying true and faithful earns you a growing, paying audience in return.

All of this could've been Overwatch (or Overwatch 2 now, I guess), once upon a time. Shame that it was, like most narrative efforts, rag-dolled to the side in favour of formulaic choices. It killed any purpose it had in the market, allowing for a game like Marvel Rivals to swoop right in, and snatch the spotlight. And I think making this point is timely, given the industry's current state, with almost 20% of the narrative workforce laid off in 2024. Perhaps more studios, those running live-service ops as well as those that deem it necessary to eradicate narrative departments, could observe Marvel Rivals as a case study, and take a page from their Darkhold.

Perhaps, keeping the story in the front and centre, and using it to inspire the "why" of their games, is key to connecting the business wants with the creative directions and risks. That's only possible if the writers and narrative designers were given the space, time, and trust to help brands bring back their "wow" factor...

... something NetEase continues to achieve with Marvel Rivals.