Marvel Rivals gets its first post-launch patch, taking aim at bugs that were making players get stuck in various places and an overpowered Doctor Strange strategy

(Image credit: NetEase)

Fresh out of a wildly successful launch weekend, Marvel Rivals just got its first post-launch patch, with developer NetEase Games taking aim at bugs and issues rather than any balance changes to the roster of heroes.

Version 20241210 rolled out a few hours ago across PC and consoles, and as explained in the patch notes, it makes some crucial changes to certain Marvel Rivals characters and maps, with a lot of effort made to get players unstuck from various places. Hydra Charteris Base: Hell's Heaven was a particularly problematic map in this regard – not only did strange lighting behavior trigger under certain circumstances, but if players were revived by Adam Warlock or Hela's team-up ability, or devoured by the cute but deadly Jeff the Land Shark when the Eldritch Monument target area was moving up or down, they could get stuck under the terrain.

Thankfully, these issues have now been fixed, along with other things like the collision on the edge of certain maps (including Klyntar: Symbiotic Surface) sometimes causing players to get jammed or sent on a wild adventure into "strange areas" after clipping through. The devs reckon "further adjustments may still be needed to fully resolve the issue" of players getting stuck on the edges, but at least it's been improved.

Aside from that, a few problems with a trio of heroes' Ultimates have been fixed. "Certain situations" would see Black Widow's Ultimate not recover energy like it was supposed to, whereas other "extreme" circumstances (which, to my dismay, aren't detailed in the notes – I'd have loved to know what falls under this category) would make it so that "Captain America's Ultimate wouldn't end as intended."

Perhaps most notable is the change to Doctor Strange, which stops a busted strategy that allowed him to quickly charge his Ultimate by triggering terrain KOs using his portals, even on his own teammates. This could even let him fully charge an Ultimate right at the start of a match, which obviously isn't very fair. For the time being, "terrain KOs will not count toward Doctor Strange's own KOs," but the problem will be properly resolved in a future update, "at which time we will restore the portals' KO attribution."

Many other bugs have been tackled in this update, but NetEase Games is far from done, as it confirms that it has "another patch in the works – this time with new content!"

While you're here, be sure to check out our guide to Marvel Rivals ranks and its competitive mode.

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