Over a month after its initial launch, “Marvel Rivals: Eternal Night Falls” is the first post-launch update that brings The Fantastic Four along with new maps, a new mode, a host of character balancing, bug fixes, and quality-of-life features to Marvel’s newest video game, “Marvel Rivals.”
Characters
The new characters are The Fantastic Four, who are a group of superheroes that had their lives altered due to Cosmic rays and received extraordinary abilities. The Fantastic Four which includes Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch, and The Thing all arrive in Season One, with Mister Fantastic and Invisible Woman released at launch.
Mister Fantastic is a duelist but has many capabilities similar to a vanguard. He can stretch to absorb damage for the team, give shields, and also transform into a secondary state. Mister Fantastic is very fun to play, but he feels lacking in damage compared to many other duelists unless he’s in his elastic state. His ultimate also isn’t strong despite being a duelist and better used to cause confusion. Mister Fantastic feels like an off-tank, someone who can take pressure off the vanguard while dishing out some damage, but that doesn’t mean he can be a replacement for a vanguard.

Invisible Woman is a strategist and can cloak herself, and her allies, and also has offensive capabilities. Her healing is not as good compared to other strategists, as she can only with a basic attack and a shield that she places in front of an ally, but it can be destroyed quickly, however, her offensive capabilities are where she shines. Invisible Woman can either pull or push enemies, which can be very helpful in combat in countering some of the heroes, such as Doctor Strange’s Ultimate. Her real strength is her ultimate which can shroud her teammates, heal, and slow enemies putting her close to other strategists such as Mantis and Luna Snow.

Invisible Woman and Mister Fantastic also have a team-up that allows Mister Fantastic to gain bonus health and reduced damage, this team-up is nice to have, but not as strong as other team-ups in the game. The description of the team-up also implies Human Torch and The Thing will also be able to make use of the team-up when they arrive
Maps and Doom Match
Along with new characters, Season One introduces a new convoy map named Empire of Eternal Night: Midtown set in a nightmarish New York City overtaken by Dracula and requires players to escort the robot Herbie to Avengers Tower.
This map feels very attacker-sided as defenders have to travel very far to contest the vehicle which leads to attackers getting through most checkpoints without much struggle. Spawns on both sides also are very easy to trap, as doors are usually right next to each other.
There’s also a new mechanic on the map where destroying structures can restore them to their pristine condition changing a few buildings. Although this effect is cool it doesn’t feel very necessary or rewarding to interact with and is not communicated clearly to players, unless they use chronovision.
Season One also introduces a new arcade mode called Doom Match which functions similarly to Free-for-all and Overwatch’s Deathmatch. This mode has a size of 8-12 players and involves every player fighting against each other to get 16 eliminations, with the top 50% in the match winning.
Doom Match is played on Empire of Eternal Night: Sanctum Sanctorum which is exclusive to the mode. It’s a small map with many teleporters and portals to use, making for a chaotic, yet fun experience. This mode is a great way to warm up before heading into competitve or just for having fun. The map aesthetic is great as well, there are references to other Marvel characters such as the sorcerer Wong, and Doctor Strange’s dog: Bats
Event
Similar to Season Zero’s “Entangled Moments”, Midnight Features are new challenges for players to complete over the course of a few weeks which awards cosmetics, lore, and units. The final reward is a classic skin for Thor. Marvel Rivals has been pretty generous with the currency and skins it’s given out, as you can earn many units from challenges, and you can get free skins from ranked Twitch drops, and battle passes. In the future hopefully, they continue to be generous with cosmetics.
Balancing
There was also a bunch of character tuning with this update. One notable character is Storm, she got buffs to damage which now brings her up to par with other duelists and makes her a good pick. Wolverine who was stated by the community as “the worst duelist” got a buff to his health and now can stay alive longer, this seems like a small change, but it allows him to get in and out safely out of enemy lines.
Strong characters who dominated the game such as Hela and Hawkeye received nerfs to their seasonal bonuses by 5%, Hawkeye also received a nerf to his damage falloff. After the update, these characters still feel really strong, especially Hawkeye who can still easily take out a hero in two to three arrows although from slightly less range.
The approach the Netease team has gone with balancing seems to be trying to make every character viable. They give little buffs and nerfs to characters here and there and don’t go overboard. An issue with character balancing currently is the time between patches, they take time to come out which is a good and bad thing. The bad is that overly strong characters will dominate for a while, but the good is that when changes come out they are hopefully more thoughtful.
Overall the first half of Season One of Marvel Rivals is an 8.5, Mister Fantastic and Invisible Woman are good additions to the roster, the new map is a letdown, and Doom Match is chaotic fun.
The second half of Season One begins in 6-7 weeks which includes the Human Torch and The Thing as a new Duelist and Vanguard respectively. There will also be another new map named Empire of Eternal Night: Central Park, but it is unknown which mode this map will be for.