There was a time where Marvel Rivals seemed like a potential Overwatch 2 killer, but lately, the tables have turned — and there are many reasons why.
When Marvel Rivals first debuted, it was the talk of the town. Virtually everyone was talking about the latest hero shooter on the block, whether it be praise for its bold team-up mechanics, appreciation for its gorgeous art style, or love for the adorable Jeff the Land Shark. While these things are all still strengths of the game, as is an impressive cadence for new hero releases and map drops, Marvel Rivals has experienced a fall from grace. At the same time, Overwatch 2 has been steadily improving itself, creating a scenario where Marvel Rivals and Overwatch 2 are surprisingly close together on Steam — something that suggests Overwatch likely has a significant lead overall.
When considering how Steam is likely the least populated platform for Overwatch, as many PC players still access the game through Battle.Net, it can safely be assumed that Overwatch 2 is more active than its competition at the moment. To be clear, Marvel Rivals is not the “dead game” some players like to erroneously throw around, as its peak player counts of 100,000 a day on Steam (and higher for hero releases) are nothing to scoff at. Still, with the game continuing to lose players and it being unclear where its floor will be, it’s worth looking at what’s going wrong for Marvel Rivals (and right for Overwatch 2).
Why Marvel Rivals is Struggling in Late 2025
In addition to the natural fall-off of casual gamers that were simply trying out something that was popular during the game’s early months, Marvel Rivals’ struggles are three-fold, with each issue arguably having an equal impact on the game’s decline. Said problems are:
A lack of Strategist heroes.
Questionable balancing and matchmaking.
An increasingly toxic community.
The most obvious of these issues is that the game is quickly growing stale for one of the three roles, as there hasn’t been a new Strategist released since Ultron came out back in May. Unfortunately, the future isn’t all that bright, either, as it’s hard to imagine the leaked characters for the next few seasons (Rogue, Gambit, Deadpool, and Else Bloodstone) being Strategists.
