It Only Took Marvel Rivals 13 Hours To Reverse Its Most Controversial Decision

The first proper season of Marvel Rivals is more than a little underway, nearly reaching the halfway point of its lofty length. And to be expected, developer NetEase released a little Dev Talk blog post discussing their plans for the milestone; mentioning that the date will be February 21 and that new heroes The Thing and Human Torch will be added to the game.

The unexpected bit of news was that they also intended to do a mid-season Rank Adjustment:

Hey Rivals,

The first half of Season 1 is reaching its end with the second half set to kick off on February 21, 2025! Get ready to welcome two new Super Heroes to Marvel Rivals—The Thing and Human Torch—along with seasonal rank adjustments.

We will be introducing additional… pic.twitter.com/KpKZsSpAGu

— Marvel Rivals (@MarvelRivals) February 10, 2025

Being that Season 1 is the first proper season of Marvel Rivals, people were paying close attention to what they should expect as the game moves forward – given that the release of the game had a shortened ‘Season Zero’ testbed that hardly represented the final product.

A mid-season reset is an odd choice, and the justification for doing so was communicated as recognising that ‘players’ ranks during the first half of Season 1 are the best indicator of their competitive skills’, so in short – they had peaked, and a small drop would mean they could climb again.

For more casual players (such as myself) there was a feeling of excitement that maybe this would curb the rampant ‘smurfing’ issue within the game – where a high level player makes a new account to play against, and with, lesser skilled players. For others however, they recognised that at the highest levels of competition within the game the rules are slightly different – and a plummet of four divisions could actually drop them out of that range of gameplay rules, meaning the ability to ban specific characters would be lost to them.

Sufficed to say, the reception was… not great.

From the most recent Dev Talk. This is truly devastating news
byu/AngryRaccoon44 inmarvelrivals

Mid season rank reset, seriously man you are single handly killing this game day by day

— Doll Discovery (@DollDiscovery) February 10, 2025

This is an extremely demotivating idea to rank reset every 45 days. This game is not a BR. That makes sense in BR like Apex due to the RNG nature but it’s not good for a hero shooter where very clear MMRs should be adhered to. Comp instability defeats the point of ranked.

— dirtmouth (@_dirtmouth) February 10, 2025

While many bemoaned the more defined failings of this plan, others were content to simply make memes:

Sending us back to the trenches 😔💔 pic.twitter.com/r3Z2jXD2bi

— Zayh (@ZayhFPS) February 10, 2025

Discussion within the games Discord and Subreddit was hot and fast, with many making good points regarding how the constant resets would sap motivation from players. Marvel Rivals content creators spun up their own opinions and deployed them, using examples of other competitive games and even going so far as to suggest that maybe Marvel Rivals needed to completely rethink their competitive strategy to avoid this kind of yo-yo’ing.

But almost as quickly as the news came, NetEase addressed it – and showed a frighteningly quick agility in how they approach decision making within their game:

Thank you for all your passionate discussions and feedback. There wil be NO RANK RESET when the second half of the season begins! Check out the details here! https://t.co/zM4IWsVRw0 #marvelrivals pic.twitter.com/7Cpn3aiwUx

— Marvel Rivals (@MarvelRivals) February 11, 2025

Simply put? They kyboshed their plans to for a ‘Seasonal Rank Adjustment’. Binned them. Dumpstered. A new Dev Talk blog post went live and they quickly explained that ‘a wealth of feedback from the community’ had lead to the plans being changed. A victory for all that had expressed their concerns.

For many observant players however, it also showcased something that is often missing in the modern gaming space:

Developers who listen to their community.

Sure, it is likely very easy to walk back plans that have not yet gone into motion – but in a landscape where Marvel Rivals often gets bemoaned as being a ‘derivative copycat’, it deserves praise for the things that it delivers on.

And shoulder-to-shoulder with its own ‘rivals’, delivering rapid community interaction and understanding currently sets Marvel Rivals apart.

Are you deep into the ranked scene of Marvel Rivals? Would a reset have concerned you? Let us know in the comments or on social media.