While lately it seems like Marvel Rivals has the edge over Overwatch 2 in the hero shooter battle, Overwatch 2 currently has one major advantage that might swing things in its favor.
Marvel Rivals’ release has caused a major splash in the hero shooter genre. While many of Overwatch 2’s competitors haven’t gained traction, Marvel Rivals is a smash hit. With the freshness of the game and a brisk release schedule, mixed with some overall negative sentiment within the Overwatch 2 community, Marvel Rivals seems to be the new king in the genre.
However, while it may not seem like it, Overwatch 2 has one major advantage over Marvel Rivals that might factor into both games’ popularity in the long-term: Overwatch 2 is significantly more polished than Marvel Rivals.
There are several bugs in the game that are an absolute dealbreaker for players, ones that have warded off fans of the hero shooter genre even if they were interested in giving Marvel Rivals a try.
Overwatch 2 runs like a dream while Marvel Rivals chugs
While Marvel Rivals is certainly not in an unplayable state and is reasonably well-polished on its own, the game has its own share of technical issues. No game is immune to bugs, of course, but Overwatch has remained a remarkably well-polished game since its 2016 release. And, if there are any game-breaking bugs, the devs are quick to respond and may even disable a hero or map if necessary.
Marvel Rivals, on the other hand, has some technical quirks. One major inconsistency with the game is with its aim, as players often report having inconsistent accuracy due to the lack of a common setting in shooter games. Marvel Rivals has built in mouse acceleration which has impacted aiming for many players, with some going as far as editing files to turn this setting off.
One of the more egregious bugs is that some characters are literally just worse when playing at lower FPS, such as Star Lord who does less damage with his ult at low FPS. This is one of the more absurd issues with the game and one that most online shooters avoid. However, the way Marvel Rivals is built from the ground-up makes this a trickier issue to fix. (You can read more about the specifics of this bug here.)
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Speaking of inconsistency, Marvel Rivals’ players often have issues with the game just crashing out of nowhere. For some players, Marvel Rivals is also just straight-up nuking their computers and GPUs. These bugs are commonly reported, but anecdotally, don’t seem to be fixed or worked on after a month or so.
These are some of the more major ones, but other impactful bugs are being found and noticed everyday, like stuttering issues and crashes taking up disk space. Some players playing the game on other systems have even been banned for just…playing the game.
Marvel Rivals’ developers have addressed this in a message to their users on Discord, claiming that they’re looking into issues with users getting wrongly banned for cheating and problems with FPS negatively impacting gameplay.
However, these are only a few of the issues on a very long list of things that need to be fixed.
Overwatch 2 is not without its bugs. but some of Marvel Rivals’ bugs lean into the absurd. Overwatch 2 overall is simply a more polished experience, especially if you’re stuck with a lower-end PC or laptop. FPS dips are rare, crashes even moreso. It’s a much more accessible game.
Marvel Rivals does have an advantage at the moment as the hot, new game that’s taking everyone’s attention. There’s a lot to love there. However, if the rapid pace of new updates doesn’t come with an equal amount of fixes to bugs that have a huge negative impact on gameplay, Overwatch may win in the long run.
