Summary
- Marvel Rivals has quickly picked up a surprising modding scene since it launched in December.
- Although replacing the Marvel heroes with DC characters makes sense, some Kingdom Hearts fans have made their mark.
- Both Sora and Riku have been added to the game already, replacing Magik and Iron Fist respectively.
Talented Kingdom Hearts fans have been doing Yen Sid’s work and giving me something I didn’t know I needed by adding Sora and Riku to Marvel Rivals.
Considering how beloved nearly every single one of Marvel Rivals’ heroes is, you’d be surprised at just how fast the game has picked up a solid modding community. Even though most of us agree that NetEase has put together some stellar designs for each of the characters, that hasn’t stopped fans from inserting their own and, in some cases, outright replacing them.
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We’ve already highlighted some of the tamer mods, such as the one that adds a Symbiote Suit for Spider-Man, but there are a few more drastic ones. Take the mods that replace the Marvel characters with their, teehee, Rivals from the world of DC, for example. That one was inevitable, but even a big lover of Kingdom Hearts like myself didn’t expect its characters to join the fight.
Sora And Riku Are Now Part Of Marvel Rivals, For Some Reason
And yet, that’s exactly what’s been happening over the last month or so. The first mod to do this welcomed in the hero of Kingdom Hearts himself, Sora. The mod, which was made by Nexus Mods creator Reflzx, replaces Marvel Rivals’ main sword-wielder (until Blade joins the fight, anyway) with Sora in his Kingdom Hearts 3 design, complete with his Kingdom Key.
A bit of Magik’s sword can still be seen when playing as Sora, but if you’re a nerd like me then you can just pretend that it’s the X-Blade and totally meant to be there.
As shown off by YouTuber TheGamersJoint, Sora looks surprisingly natural in the world of Marvel Rivals, even if the mod does have a bit of a lighting issue due to using the Kingdom Hearts 3 model. Still, considering how long we’ve waited for anything new from the series, this might be the closest we’ll get to swinging the Kingdom Key anytime soon.
Forget Keyblades for a minute, though, as another modder by the name of Leonaura has created a mod that replaces Rivals’ infamous Iron Fist with Riku from Kingdom Hearts 2. Well, it’s actually his short-haired Dream Drop Distance variant, but he looks so cool in action that it doesn’t really matter.
Although it’s a little strange to see Riku throwing his Way to the Dawn aside and go all-in on the fisticuffs, the use of a more colourful and less realistic model actually suits Rivals rather well. And hey, it’s not like we haven’t seen Kingdom Hearts characters focus on hand-to-hand combat from time to time.
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