In Its Release Month, Marvel Rivals Attracted Nearly Half Of The Players Who Stopped Playing Overwatch 2

NetEase's launch of hero shooter Marvel Rivals last year was one accompanied by some comparisons between Overwatch, as the similarities are hard to ignore. It was unknown which players had chosen between the two until a recent report from NewZoo gave us a clue, as it found that nearly half of the players who stopped playing Overwatch 2 in December embraced the new team-based PvP shooter.

Overwatch: Classic event that Blizzard released to bring back a nostalgic gaming experience helped the game gain 12% in terms of interaction. However, a 26% decline followed, which coincided with the end of the event and the launch of Marvel Rivals four days later.

This industry analysis also shows that playtime on free-to-play games enjoys accelerated growth due to the fact that Marvel Rivals, Fortnite, and Roblox gained share from existing incumbents. Specifically, 7% of all F2P growth was from Marvel Rivals, following the 8% contributed by Nexon's The First Descendant.

On the other side, half of F2P playtime decline has been attributed to several popular games: Counter-Strike 2 & GO (15%), League of Legends (14%), Apex Legends (13%), The Sims 4 (13%), and Overwatch 2 (8%), with a further note specifying that 45% of drained Overwatch 2 players played Marvel Rivals.

Meanwhile, Marvel Rivals, which saw a 644k peak concurrent player record in January this year, has ranked third in the top new releases in 2024 by playtime, following Helldivers 2 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.