Key Takeaways
- Former Blizzard president Mike Ybarra took to Twitter recently to call out Marvel Rivals for being an “Overwatch clone”.
- With Rivals being so popular and launching smoothly, fans tore the claim apart, leading to Ybarra deleting the tweet.
- Funnily enough, we were all calling Rivals an Overwatch clone at one point, before realising that it’s so good it doesn’t really matter.
In a since-deleted tweet, former Blizzard president Mike Ybarra called out Marvel Rivals for being an “Overwatch clone”, something that most fans of the game didn’t take very kindly to.
When Marvel Rivals was first revealed towards the start of 2024, the first reaction that nearly everyone had was that it looked exactly like a Marvel-ified Overwatch. That impression changed a little after the focus on melee gameplay and character team-ups was revealed, but things really started turning around when everyone got their hands on it.
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Marvel Rivals does so much right with Overwatch’s formula that a lot of players stopped caring how similar the two games are and started appreciating what sets them apart. Now that the game has finally launched, it seems that the public opinion on Marvel Rivals is nothing but positivity, making a recent tweet from former Blizzard president Mike Ybarra rather controversial.
Ex-Blizzard President Calls Marvel Rivals An “Overwatch Clone”
As pointed out by Twitter user MarvelRivalsNew, Mike Ybarra recently took to Twitter to share some thoughts on Marvel Rival’s launch, which started with him calling it “Overwatch Marvel Rivals” and comparing it to Light of Motiran, which he thinks is a “clear copy” of Horizon: Zero Dawn and pointed out that it also comes from China.
Ybarra then pointed out that Widowmaker and Black Widow (who both have Spidery names) have the same role in their respective games. As you can imagine, this tweet wasn’t well-received by Marvel Rivals fans, who pointed out that Black Widow predates Widowmaker by about 50 years.
After being community-noted, Ybarra deleted his tweet, but not before Twitter accounts like MarvelRivalsNew shared what was said and put it on blast. While Ybarra isn’t wrong about Rivals taking Overwatch’s formula (we’ve all been saying it for months), it does do enough new to set it apart and, more importantly, does things less controversially than Overwatch.
Ybarra’s comments might not have been received so sourly if Overwatch was in a good place, but that hasn’t been the case for the past few years. Overwatch 2 proved controversial when it was announced, let alone when half of the things that were supposed to set it apart from the first game were cancelled.
That disdain, combined with how competently put together Marvel Rivals is at launch, has made Ybarra’s comment an easy target to make fun of, something that fans have proven since the tweet was made. While the former Blizzard President isn’t wrong about the clear inspiration, it’s hard to see Rivals as anything other than an upgrade right now.
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