The hugely hyped Marvel Rivals has seen a steady decline since its launch, as would be expected from a free-to-play live-service title. For the first time since its release though, Marvel Rivals player count on Steam has finally started to drop below 100,000 peak concurrent players. The data as viewable on SteamDB doesn’t paint a positive picture for the current state of the Marvel Rivals community, but it’s also not entirely surprising.
Live service games tend to drop in player count as time goes on due to players having their fill of the gameplay, with games like Marvel Rivals often heavily encouraging grinding to earn rewards. With more rewards, unlockables and even new currency options in the game since its more simplified launch, perhaps a gradual fatigue towards the grind and unlockables has, at least temporarily, reduced player interest in Marvel Rivals.
The other main challenge facing Marvel Rivals is that it’s competing with so many other live service games at the moment. As time passes, more and more live service games are released, and the ones that are available release floods of new content to try and keep their players engaged. People only have so many hours available in the day for gaming, so there will always be winners and losers in the live service space, and their roles can switch in an instant with a new update or content drop. For now Marvel Rivals is struggling, but we’ll see what happens after Season 3 releases.
How do you feel about the Marvel Rivals player drop? Is it to be expected? Let us know your thoughts in the comments down below, and keep your eyes on GameLuster for more breaking gaming news and Marvel Rivals coverage.
Could kind of see this after playing the game back in December. The game just doesn’t really feel good enough to want to play over and over for an extended period of time. Too clunky, along with the typical balance issues that hero shooters run into. Will be interested to see the size of the playerbase after Marvel Rivals’ 1-year anniversary.
season 3 can bring some new life into it! Fingers crossed!