Marvel Rivals devs have created cross-progression, but “platform-specific rules” are holding it back

NetEase’s Marvel Rivals is a massive game that allows you decimate beautiful environments as your favourite heroes and villains. However, the game lacks one key feature for a free-to-play multiplayer game in 2024: cross-progression.

In a recent interview, Marvel Rivals creative director Guangyun “Guangguang” Chen revealed that there is a version of cross-progression in the works at the studio. However, because of “platform-specific rules”, the feature isn’t allowed to be implemented yet.

Marvel Rivals cross-progression held back

Speaking to DotEsports, Chen explained that the implementation of “cross-progression involves a lot of platform-specific rules” that the team have to accommodate. While there is a basic version of the system ready, the team needs to make sure every platform—Xbox, PlayStation, etc—have their unique features hit.

“We’re still looking at it and how to solve it,” said Chen. “Once the team is ready, once we’ve figured it out, we’ll be sharing to everyone and players will be the first to know.”

With Marvel Rivals specifically, some players who tried the game in its Alpha test on PC have unique skins that can’t be used on their console versions of the game because of the lack of cross-progression. However, the new hero shooter is far from the only game that has suffered from missing the feature on launch.

While a lot of games use a third-party tool such as Epic Multiplayer Services, Marvel Rivals uses its own multiplayer tech to connect players and handle its cross-play features. Nevertheless, it seems the team has a lot of the work for cross-progression done already meaning it’ll hopefully release in the coming months.

For more Rivals news, read about the awesome new holiday event releasing this month alongside a new free skin for everyone’s favourite land shark, Jeff. I love him so much. If you want something with a bit more bite, read about the game director’s thoughts on why Concord failed.