Blizzard Entertainment's former boss has chimed in on hero-shooting newbie Marvel Rivals and implied it's an Overwatch copycat.
Ex-CEO Mike Ybarra left the World of Warcraft publisher earlier this year, but still occasionally comments on industry ongoings on social media. And with the superhero shooter jumping into the fray tomorrow - check out our Marvel Rivals release times guide for more - Ybarra decided to speak out on the Overwatch comparisons we've all been talking about since its announcement.
"Looks like Overwatch Marvel Rivals ships tomorrow. Much like Light of Motiram (a clear copy of HZD) out of China," he tweets, referring to the newly announced survival game that looks an awful lot like Horizon Zero Dawn. "I mean even the character name - Widowmaker in OW vs. Black Widow in Marvel Rivals lol. NetEase/TenCent - all the same."
- It's time to stop calling Marvel Rivals an Overwatch 2 killer now that its features have already surpassed it
- "Both Marvel Rivals and Overwatch are excellent superhero shooters" says the Chinese publisher behind both games as they make the move to China: "The market is large enough to accommodate both games"
Marvel Rivals has, of course, been compared to genre kingpin Overwatch for months now. Even our Marvel Rivals preview couldn't ignore the similarities as they both share match objectives (escort the payload, etc) and multiple character movesets (Hulk turns into a pistol-wielding Bruce Banner a la D.Va.) The latest round of discussions came when NetEase showed off Black Widow's abilities, including a sniper that charges up and a grappling hook that obviously invited comparisons to Overwatch's main sniper Black Widow.
In fairness, Marvel Rivals is trying to differentiate itself in some other ways. Most obviously, it's a third-person shooter. Matches are also 6v6 affairs, as opposed to Overwatch 2's current 5v5 rounds. And battle passes are happily more generous than most live service games since you can continue to progress through them even when a season ends. We'll see how it all shakes out in the seasons ahead, though.
