I played a lot of Marvel Rivals last night. One of the biggest games in the world right now, and like a fool I decided to ignore the first season until I had a few hours left before it disappeared. After reading several games and progressing through the last few pages of the battle pass, I felt satisfied and ready for the season ahead. But then I realized that, to my dismay, there is no cross-over development of the NetEase hero shooter.
I've taken this feature for granted in recent years, as developers have done an amazing job of making it mainstream. Fortnite, Overwatch, Destiny, Call of Duty and more allow me to create an account and copy everything I do to other platforms I can play on. Years of advancements and unique cosmetics are available on console, PC and mobile with the click of a few buttons, so it's rare to find a feature missing from one of the the biggest live service games in years.
Marvel's antagonists are too good to feel this constraint
Once upon a time, progress felt like an ambitious dream. I remember when I played two games of Destiny on PS4 and Xbox One, so I could play with a group of friends across both platforms, putting in the hours to create two guardians because I had no other choice.
So is Call of Duty, if you're the crazy type with a desire to play on multiple devices. Proving yourself again was new and exciting in some ways, but when online gaming became a big part of my life, it just became frustrating.
You had different levels, different openings, and different perspectives for each game you played. It was years before we heard words like loot box and battle pass, before developers knew the ecosystem they were creating and the value of their audience. All you had was a level and unlimited experience points you could earn.
I'm still a little embarrassed by the level of excitement I felt when I found out that Blizzard was offering a way to combine all of my Overwatch accounts into a single experience. Now I can show how lost I am.
Cross-promotion should be the rule for direct-to-service games
I've spent hundreds on Overwatch and Fortnite, so there's an expectation that all my financial investment and hard work will be reflected no matter what platform I use to play. Most big games rise to that moment, but that's not the case with Marvel Rivals. Currently, it doesn't offer a way to connect your different domains, and there's no account you can create to show everything you unlock during the season.
As someone who works at a desk on a fairly decent gaming PC, I can't help but spend my lunch hours playing Overwatch to gain experience or level up a couple. And if I want to play more in the evening on PS5 or Xbox Series X, I can go in safely knowing that I will be participating in the same fighting game. Premium skins that I decided to buy outside of seasonal events are also available everywhere I play, something I stopped buying in Marvel Rivals because I knew they would never move.
The first season is here, set to bring four new heroes and a season pass full of content with a premium shop that I know will offer some killer outfits. But this has proved a double-edged sword because I don't want to play on PC when I know I've seen most of my progress on PS5, so why waste time on another platform? Since crossplay already exists, it's surprising that progress hasn't followed in its footsteps. If we're lucky, it's only a matter of time before NetEase finds us and steps up to the plate.
