Marvel Rivals has proven to be a big success in the hero-shooter genre, all thanks to the hard work of developer NetEase Games. Not only has the game managed to reach over 40 million players in less than 3 months since its debut, but it has also stolen players from its competitors.
The hero-shooter continues to dominate Steam’s top-sellers and concurrent player charts. However, there’s a new challenger on the horizon, one that takes inspiration from Titanfall and is already setting records. It’s time for NetEase Games to watch out.
Marvel Rivals‘ biggest threat is making waves
Back during The Game Awards 2023, Amazing Seasun Games revealed Mecha BREAK. Although the game had to compete for attention due to other major announcements at the events, the reveal trailer managed to turn some heads, thanks to the fast-paced gameplay, intense gun combat, and, best of all, mechs.
Mecha BREAK is supposed to hit the shelves sometime in spring 2025, but the Global Storm open beta for the game kicked off on February 23 for PC and Xbox Series S/X players. Despite the fact that it’s a demo, gamers quickly rushed to Steam to download the title.
According to SteamDB, the demo managed to reach a peak concurrent player count of more than 317,000 players on Valve’s platform. While the numbers have dwindled down, Mecha BREAK has been among the top games on Steam’s charts, even overtaking Marvel Rivals for quite a bit.
While Marvel Rivals has already taken back its spot, making NetEase Games sweat is quite an incredible achievement. However, all these numbers don’t mean success for Amazing Seasun Games, as player reviews on the demo’s Steam page are now mostly negative.
One of the biggest issues that players have encountered is the painfully long tutorial that isn’t informative. The other is that the developer’s usage of Kernel Level anti-cheat software has a terrible reputation among gamers. Players have also complained about bugs and the overall sloppiness of the game.
Considering the fact that this is just a beta build of Mecha BREAK, the finished product will undoubtedly be much more crispier and cleaner. If the development team can follow the footsteps of NetEase Games, it will have a real shot at striking Marvel Rivals, and Mecha BREAK will be established as the next big thing.
Marvel Rivals was almost axed by NetEase Games
As we’ve said before, Marvel Rivals is one of the hottest games one can play right now. Seriously, we’ve never seen this level of dominance by any game, and it continues to set new heights every day with brand-new updates and additions that keep players hooked.
However, you’ll be surprised to know that NetEase almost canceled Rivals. According to a report from Bloomberg, an unnamed source linked to NetEase revealed that founder William Ding nearly axed the title’s entire development.
Reports suggest that Ding was unwilling to give Disney the money to use the heroes and villains of the Marvel Comics. The source also suggested that NetEase founder thought of pushing the game’s development without maintaining links with Disney and Marvel, asking the developers to use their own superheroes to replace Marvel characters already in development.
If Rivals was axed, we’d never see the hero-shooter genre gain back its prominence. Heck, Overwatch 2 wouldn’t have bothered in the slightest to improve. It’s great to see that the project did make it through development hell.
With that said, do you think Marvel Rivals should be scared of Mecha BREAK? Let us know in the comments below.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
