Marvel Rivals player numbers peak as the internet falls back in love with Fantastic Four

It’s no secret that the Fantastic Four have struggled to stay relevant as pop culture evolved. From the early 2000s movies to the horrendous Fant4stic, the famous family have even struggled to stay relevant in comics. However, with the arrival of Marvel Rivals Season 1, Eternal Night, the Fantastic Four are not only popular, but record-breaking again.

Fantastic Four break Marvel Rivals peak

While Marvel Rivals was already popular, the arrival of Season 1 has somehow managed to crack its already high peak concurrent player numbers. Via Steam Charts, the arrival of the Season 1 update brought NetEase’s free-to-play game to its highest ever player count on Steam.

On release of the new update, Rivals’ concurrent player count managed to rise to a massive 445,159 players all fighting at the same time. Prior to the update’s release, Rivals’ previous all-time peak was 437,531 players.

With Season 1 offering double the content of regular seasons, NetEase Games has certainly gone hard on the game’s first post-launch update. Based wholly on the game’s Steam data, the game is bigger than ever before, proving that Marvel Rivals does have long legs.

Since release, Marvel Rivals has not only managed to maintain its rather massive fanbase, but continue to grow. With rival hero shooters like Overwatch suffering and live-service games like Destiny 2 seeing plummeting player counts, it’s nice to see a new game succeed in such a brutal market. After all, we all remember what happened to Concord.

As NetEase plan new events with ways to earn free skins and unban players on Steam Deck and MacOS, it’s clear that the game has a solid content plan for the future.

For more news on Marvel Rivals, read about how the game’s most popular hero is also its biggest loser, or check out the latest buffs and nerfs.