How Marvel Rivals Season 4.5 will impact esports

NetEase has revealed everything fans can expect from the second half of Marvel Rivals Season 4: Heart of the Dragon through Dev Vision Volume 10.

The Season 4.5 update launches on October 10th, bringing a new playable character, Team-Up changes, and more.

Daredevil arrives as the second playable character of Season 4 after Angela, and will join as a Duellist. Not much is known about his kit at the moment, with details expected to be released closer to launch.

However Guangzhou ‘GuangGuang’ Chen, the Creative Director of Marvel Rivals, shared that Daredevil is capable of using a ‘radar’ to locate enemies, ‘prioritise’ them, and use his batons for melee damage. The Season 4 trailer also showed him blinding enemies, which is expected to be part of his Ultimate.

Team-Up changes will also be implemented with Season 4.5. Ragnarok Rebirth, including Thor and Angela, will be removed. Namor will also leave the Gamma Charge team up with Hulk and Black Panther.

Two new Team-Ups will be added. Namor joins Hela in Deep Wrath, where he can summon a pillar of dark water to damage enemies, and either character can briefly summon a Nastrond Monstro Spawn.

The second Team-Up is between Daredevil and Punisher, called Bestial Hunt, where the latter can fire a grenade to temporarily blind affected enemies and lower their defence. Additionally, information gathered by Daredevil’s targeting is shared to Punisher.

Some new cosmetics will also be added to Marvel Rivals during Season 4.5. This includes a Halloween-themed collection for Namor, Peni Parker, and Jeff the Landshark. There will also be a zombified Scarlet Witch skin themed after the Marvel Zombies show, a Moon Knight Blade skin, and a monster Spider-Man.

Other quality-of-life features were also shared, such as the ability to customise in-game backgrounds in the main menu. Furthermore, cross-progression is currently in the works and will be released in Season 5.

The biggest additions will be the inclusion of Daredevil alongside the new Team-Up changes, which will no doubt shake up the currently ongoing Marvel Rivals Ignite Stage 2 scene. The Team-Ups, in particular, can help make less popular characters more competitively viable to keep pace with some of the meta picks this season.

However, the most impactful aspect of Season 4.5 will be the balance changes, which have not been shared at this time. Similar to previous seasons, patch notes detailing buffs and nerfs are expected to be published closer to release.

The update arrives at a crucial point in the esports scene, as some of these changes could spell the difference between victory and defeat during Ignite Stage 2, the Season 4 Championships, and the Ignite Grand Finals later this year.