Marvel Rivals took the world by storm in December of last year, quickly becoming one of the most popular multiplayer games to play, and according to a new report, a huge chunk of Overwatch 2 players made that jump over to Rivals. Marvel Rivals features objective-based multiplayer gameplay and even shares similar UI elements with Overwatch, so the two games are often compared. Both are also free-to-play, and with the huge pulling power of the Marvel IP, it's not surprising that a lot of Overwatch 2 players dropped the game for Marvel Rivals instead.
According to a gaming industry report from NewZoo (via Insider Gaming), 45% of Overwatch 2 players who stopped playing the game in December jumped over to play Marvel Rivals. Overwatch 2 hit a player-peak when it was in early access in 2022, and the game's player count progressively got lower, became stagnant in 2024, and then lowered even more when Marvel Rivals released. Even though it came out in the last month of the year, Marvel Rivals was one of the most played games of 2024.
Successful new games that are similar to another existing game are often coined as the "killer"...
