NetEase Games
A Marvel Rivals developer speaks on why Concord and Firewalk Studios failed
Why has Marvel Rivals succeeded when Concord didn’t get enough wind under its wings? A NetEase developer thinks they have an answer.
It is evident that seeing the reception of one and the other, Marvel Rivals has done many things well that Concord couldn’t. The hero shooter by NetEase has had a strong start, pulling in millions of players around it thanks to the undeniable charisma of its characters and its free-to-play model, two aspects that the game of by the now-shutdown Firewalk Studios didn’t have.
Thaddeus Sasser, director of Marvel Rivals, is clear about what went wrong in Concord, summing it up in a very simple way: “It did not provide unique value”, referring to what Overwatch 2 already offered, and inherently making it clear that there was no reason for players of the Blizzard title to give Concord a chance. “There is a cost to switching: I’ve already invested in Overwatch, I have 15 Pharah skins. I’m not going anywhere” Sasser adds.
As we said before, being able to play with the characters from the House of Ideas is a plus that not only Concord, nor Overwatch 2, can offer. “I don’t know about you, but when I heard the concept of the game I was like ‘Oh my god, I want to play as Storm in a game,’ or ‘I want to play as Doctor Strange.’ I want to be all those heroes in the game, it sounds amazing”.
Of course, are talking about characters with decades behind them, and who have been able to captivate millions of fans around the world, if not through comics, then on the big screen thanks to the recent and successful MCU.
Marvel Rivals revitalizes the hero shooter and becomes the new king of the genre
It seems that, after all, the hero shooter wasn’t dead. All that was needed was a game accessible to everyone and with charisma, and there is no doubt that Marvel Rivals has met both requirements. To this he has added a player-friendly business model, since yes, he has a season pass, but All new characters that arrive from now on will be free for all players.
“Marvel Rivals has unleashed a small earthquake within the hero shooter genre with its arrival, which has changed the status quo of a field in which competition is fierce,” we said in our review. “Bad experiments like Concord during this same 2024 and the many unfulfilled promises of Overwatch 2 made many think that there was no interest in the genre, but that was not the case at all.”
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