Marvel Rivals – A Fight Brewing
There’s a fight brewing in Marvel Rivals – and I’m not talking about the comic book heroes squaring off against Marvel’s supervillains. No, the real showdown is happening online, where fans are side-eyeing the suspiciously similar design of the game’s famous blonde female characters.
We’re used to artists taking on and adapting Marvel characters to their style, read my interview with Stanley ‘Artgerm’ Lau for how this can be done, but the blonde female characters in Marvel Rivals – including Invisible Woman, Dagger and Emma Frost – all do, kind of, look the same, and fans aren’t happy.
Marvel Rivals as a Character Design Problem
The main culprits appear to be Dagger, Invisible Woman and Emma Frost, but fans are also adding Captain Marvel and Gwen Stacy into the mix to suggest Marvel Rivals has a blonde white girl problem. Each character has the same heart-shaped face, delicate nose, pouty lips and tussled, wavy blonde hair. The dev team certainly has a ‘type’. But fans are saying, from a character design view, it feels like an overuse of Ctrl+C, Ctril+V.
Good character design, even when adapting a famous or predefined character, should be about putting the personality front and centre, so players and fans can see, at glance, who the hero is and what they stand for. But in Marvel Rivals, it feels like any sense of individuality is being massaged away in favour of a popular but ultimately similar look.
Stylisation too far?
To be fair to Marvel Rivals art team, the game has defined style and it’s proven incredibly popular, and within that style there’s likely little space to manoeuvre to make each new character truly distinct. That, and the dev team knows which Marvel characters their fans are going to love and, well… they happen to be busty, slim blonde females.
Marvel Rivals is a huge hit, at its peak the game has had 644,269 players on Steam, so it’s doing okay and has a formula. But if Marvel Rivals wants to win over casual and diehard comic fans, especially legacy Marvel fans, it will need to address this character design problem. Right now the game’s blondes are blurring together and no one seems happy.
Conclusion
Marvel Rivals has a character design problem on its hands. The game’s blonde female characters are all starting to look the same, and fans are not happy about it. While the game has a defined style and has been popular, it needs to find a way to make each new character truly distinct and not just a rehash of the same old design.
FAQs
Q: Why are Marvel Rivals’ blonde female characters looking the same?
A: The characters are all based on the same template and have similar design elements, which is causing them to look similar.
Q: Is this a problem unique to Marvel Rivals?
A: No, character design issues are common in video games, and fans often notice when characters start to look similar.
Q: Can Marvel Rivals fix this issue?
A: Yes, the game’s developers can try to make each new character more distinct by adding different design elements and personality traits.
Q: Will this issue affect the game’s popularity?
A: Yes, if left unchecked, the character design issue could negatively impact the game’s popularity and reputation among fans.
