Marvel Rivals Season 5 Kicks Off With Extensive New Update

Season 5 of Marvel Rivals has today gone live alongside a major new update for the competitive multiplayer game. Earlier this week, developer NetEase Games revealed that Season 5 of Marvel Rivals would notably bring X-Men icons Gambit and Rogue as the latest playable characters in the game. While Rogue won’t be added to the Rivals roster until later in Season 5, Gambit is now available and has joined the experience in tandem with some more widespread overhauls.

Available to download now across PlayStation, Xbox, and PC platforms, the Season 5 update for Marvel Rivals is one of the biggest that the title has seen in quite some time. As mentioned, Gambit stands out as the most prominent new addition to Marvel Rivals but is joined by the new Times Square map, which is meant to be a place for players to “hang out” without engaging in combat. NetEase has also added a pair of new stories to Marvel Rivals as well as a handful of new systems to the game.

When it comes to balance changes, there’s not a lot that has happened here at the start of Season 5. The only playable characters that have had their abilities tweaked are Ultron and Peni Parker, while the Queen of the Dead in the Marvel Zombies game mode has also been altered a bit. Other than this, the only other alterations to Marvel Rivals at this point are tied to the specific ports on PC and console.

To get a look at all of the changes that have come to Marvel Rivals today, you can view the full Season 5 patch notes below.

Marvel Rivals Season 5 Update Patch Notes

All-New Content

New Hero

Gambit goes all in on Marvel Rivals!

New Map

Times Square: A non-combat map where players can interact, hang out, and enjoy various activities.

New Stories

• New Serial – Love is a Battlefield
• New Gambit Lore – Deal of a Lifetime

New Systems

• Home background can now be set to randomly rotate.
• Added All-New Interactive Emotes: Now you can join other heroes in performing interactive emotes and engage together on the battlefield! Some existing dance emotes have been upgraded to interactive versions.
• Cross-progression account linking is now fully available.  
• Xbox: Added new Discord linking and cross-platform chat.  
• Xbox & PC: Added an option to hide unlinked Discord friends in-game.  

New In Store

• Gambit – Thieves Guildmaster Bundle
• Magneto – Temporal Tyrant Bundle
• Gambit – Thieves Guildmaster Emoji Bundle
• Gambit – Crimson Heart

Fixes and Optimizations

All Platforms

• Significant CPU logic and rendering performance improvements.

PC

• Intel XeSS Frame Generation now supports non-Intel GPUs (requires Shader Model 6.4).  
• Performance testing tool reworked for more accurate in-game CPU performance.
• CPU RHI thread consumption is now displayed for pinpointing CPU bottlenecks.

Console

• Major reduction in game client file size.

Heroes

• Peni Parker’s Venom Vision: We’ve fixed a bug where Peni Parker, while using the VEN#m costume, could spot Arachno-Mine outlines through walls. With great power comes great responsibility, and now, no more wall hacks! Her spider-sense is back to being street legal.  
• Queen of the Dead’s Shield Shenanigans: In Marvel Zombies Nightmare IV difficulty, The Queen of The Dead’s overlapping shields were so tough that Magik’s Eldritch Whirl couldn’t scratch the surface. We’ve dispelled this dark sorcery; now Magik’s blade can cut through the chaos!  
• Ultron’s Ulti-Undercut: When Ultron summoned his drone minions with his Ultimate Ability, allies and enemies alike couldn’t see their dazzling projectile effects or hear their menacing sounds. We’ve upgraded his programming. Now, Ultron’s army brings both the noise and the spectacle. Resistance is futile!