Superhero card game Marvel Snap gets October release date

Marvel Snap
(Image credit: Marvel / Second Dinner)

Marvel Snap, the fast-paced, free-to-play superhero card game from former Hearthstone director Ben Brode, is officially coming to PC and mobile on October 18.

Developer Second Dinner announced the game's launch during Disney and Marvel's showcase earlier today. Marvel Snap was always pitched as a "mobile-first" but not mobile-exclusive game designed to showcase the depth of the Marvel universe, and with over 150 cards featuring characters from dozens of series, the launch version already looks pretty deep indeed. 

As Brode explained when Marvel Snap was first revealed earlier this year, the game was built around matches that average three minutes each. You build a deck of 12 cards and drop them into three lanes to fight for control of the board, with different lanes triggering different effects based on the Marvel setting they're based on. You win by ending a match with control of two lanes, and since you and your opponents' turns essentially happen simultaneously, control can flip-flop pretty wildly. 

Marvel Snap will add new cards through seasonal updates, and Second Dinner was quick to stress that "you can get every card in the game over time without paying anything." That said, the early beta periods for Marvel Snap left some card game enthusiasts watering their eyes at how heavily monetized the game can feel. How the October launch version may have been updated to reflect this feedback, or how the full game may make things more approachable, remains to be seen.

You can find more details on Marvel Snap's pre-registration hub.  

Today's show also gave us a (hopefully final) Marvel's Midnight Suns release date, if you're looking for another helping of heroic cards. 

Austin Wood

Austin freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree, and he's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize that his position as a senior writer is just a cover up for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a focus on news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.