Marvel Rivals Season 3 is on the way, with a reveal trailer on Tuesday solidifying what numerous leaks had all-but-confirmed over the past few weeks: Blade and Phoenix are joining the roster.
Phoenix, or Jean Grey, is a Duelist, and she's first up, being added to the lineup with the 3.0 update on July 11, 2025. Fans will be waiting just a bit longer for the long-slumbering half-vampire, as Blade is being added in Season 3.5 at the halfway point next month.
This next chapter marks the beginning of an ambitious new cycle for NetEase Games' free-to-play hero shooter, with seasons being shortened to just two months. That means that the game will have a new playable character every month, which is, bluntly, astounding.
Season 3 is all about the rise of Knull, who is teaming up with Hela to wreak untold chaos and death. You can check out the reveal trailer for Marvel Rivals Season 3 below, which includes a catchy, familiar tune for the Daywalker:
In a follow-up video, creative director Guanguang confirmed that the Battle Pass will still have 10 outfits and that players will now be earning Chrono Tokens faster in order to make up for the shortened length of time for each season.
This includes having Weekly challenges no longer expire, meaning players don't miss out on a large chunk of potential tokens if they take a few days off from playing.
The Battle Pass hasn't fully been unveiled, but it includes Symbiote skins for multiple characters, including Jeff the Land Shark, Rocket Raccoon, and Squirrel Girl.
Players are also getting new customization options, including recolors for some outfits and earning special visual effects, such as a golden dragon circling Scarlet Witch during her Ultimate.
Guanguang confirmed that the team also heard player feedback on MVP animations, and will now have a player's equipped skin displayed in any MVP cinematic, instead of having an animation be limited to the outfit bundle it was purchased in.
The lobby background will now display the background of a unique skin that's equipped, adding more flavor to pre-game matches if players group up and chat with friends.
We need the balance notes, but I've got concerns
The developers have not published the full patch notes, but instead included some highlights, such as confirming that with careful timing, The Thing will now be able to leap into the air and attack a flying character.
Mr. Fantastic is also seeing a slight nerf to his survivability when inflated, while Invisible Woman's healing will get a small boost. All of these are great details to have, but I couldn't help but notice one glaring omission, as there's no mention of Thor whatsoever.
For the unfamiliar, Thor is in a very bad spot right now, with his brawling greatly reduced in an ill-chosen attempt to make players focus more on his Awakening Rune ability. This isn't just my bias as a Thor main talking, as the Asgardian went completely unselected during a recent Ignite tournament.
I'm holding out some hope that he'll get at least a nudge in the right direction in the full patch notes, but considering how he's near-universally agreed upon to be the Vanguard that needs the most help right now, it's somewhat shocking that he didn't warrant any mention in the developer overview.
On a far less serious note, I hope we also see the promised lineup of swimsuits in Marvel Rivals soon. It's July now, so it seems like the right time to start doling out that attire.
Marvel Rivals is free-to-play on Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, and PlayStation 5.
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