Marvel Rivals' early metrics look promising as NetEase's shooter peaks at over 52k concurrent players in closed beta

Marvel Rivals, an upcoming PvP hero shooter from NetEase, is showing great numbers at the start of its closed beta. The game has already attracted tens of thousands of concurrent users on Steam alone.

On July 23, NetEase launched a closed beta test for Marvel Rivals on both PC and consoles. It is available to a limited number of players who requested access on the game’s page, but it is unclear how many people in total were allowed to join the playtest.

According to SteamDB, Marvel Rivals peaked at 52,671 concurrent users on Steam. This is a significant improvement from its brief closed alpha in May, when the game reached a maximum of 10.9k CCU.

The Marvel Rivals beta will run until August 5, so it is metrics may increase during this period. It is also worth noting that the playtest is only available in North America, Europe, and Asia.

For comparison, Concord peaked at just 2,388 concurrent players on Steam during its open beta ran from July 18 to July 21. Although Marvel Rivals is a free-to-play game based on a world-famous IP, Sony’s upcoming hero shooter (priced $40) was available to all players during its playtest. So the difference in player interest is huge.

Marvel Rivals is a 6v6 third-person hero shooter featuring over 20 characters from the comics. One of the mechanics that makes it stand out from other games in the genre is various team-up skills that allow heroes to combine their powers in special attacks.

Another core feature is environmental destruction, which was created using Unreal Engine 5’s Chaos system to synchronize the results across different clients. However, not all objects can be destroyed, with devs saying that “essential structures that serve as blockades in the levels, such as high platforms, are designed to be indestructible to ensure player maneuverability and the strategic nature of team battles.”

The production on Marvel Rivals is split between NetEase’s studios in the US (Seattle) and China (Guangzhou). The game’s director is Thaddeus Sasser, who has over 20 years of experience in the industry at Activision, Visceral Games, Amazon, Volition, Striking Distance, and more. His portfolio includes titles like Call of Duty 2, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, and Battlefield Hardline.

Marvel Rivals still has no official release date. NetEase plans to launch the game on PC first, with console versions for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S coming later.