Marvel Rivals Is Becoming a 'Moving Anime' in 2026

Marvel Rivals creative director Guangyun Chen has a plan for the game through 2027, and he's described it in a way that's already breaking Reddit's collective brain. Speaking to FRVR, Chen said the goal is "to shift from being 'just a shooter' to a Marvel 'moving anime' experience." That quote is doing a lot of heavy lifting, and honestly, I'm not sure it's up to the task.

The top comment in the Reddit thread covering the interview is simply "What?" which, look, is a fair response. But if you squint past the phrasing, Chen is describing something more concrete than the words suggest. NetEase wants Marvel Rivals to become a multi-mode content platform rather than a pure PvP shooter. That's not nothing, especially for a game that launched in December 2024 as a straightforward 6v6 hero shooter and has been running hard ever since.

What's Actually Coming

Chen was specific about the roadmap. "We are moving beyond standard 6v6 PvP," he told FRVR. "This includes the expansion into new PvE modes and Path to Doomsday. The event will feature five MCU-related updates inspired by the Infinity Saga, including new game modes and themed content." NetEase already tested PvE waters with a Halloween event in 2025, so this isn't a cold pivot. It's an escalation of something they've been quietly building toward.

The Infinity Saga framing is the interesting part. Five MCU-inspired updates across the rest of the year gives NetEase a built-in content calendar with recognisable story beats to hang new modes off. The multiverse setup the game already uses makes hopping between MCU continuities relatively painless from a lore standpoint. And with Chen citing over 9,000 Marvel characters as a character pool, the roster concern that dogs most hero shooters isn't really a concern here.

The ambition makes sense from a competitive angle too. Overwatch has been clawing back players with its own recent updates, and a straight 6v6 shooter arms race isn't a fight NetEase necessarily wants to have. Differentiating Marvel Rivals as a broader Marvel content experience, rather than just a PvP game, gives it a lane that Overwatch can't easily follow. Whether "moving anime" is the phrase that sells that vision to players is another question entirely.

The real question is whether NetEase can execute on this without letting the core PvP game slip. Balance is already a sore spot; support heroes are reportedly dominant enough that competitive players are banning them out of matches wherever possible. Adding PvE modes and MCU event content is great, but if the 6v6 game underneath is creaking, no amount of Infinity Saga theming fixes that. Chen's content plan maps out through 2027, which is an ambitious horizon. The foundation needs to hold that long.

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