Marvel Rivals Censorship Explained

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home January 9, 2025 37 Views 10 Min Read
Marvel Rivals Censorship Explained



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Marvel Rivals exploded onto the scene in a big way last month, with more than 20 million active players queuing up as their favorite Marvel heroes and villains. Although the game has yet to complete a full season of gameplay, the early reactions are extremely positive from the community, who’ve been looking for a hero shooter to satisfy the itch that NetEase has managed to scratch. And with the developers seemingly establishing an ambitious hero release schedule, the future is looking very bright for the latest Marvel game.

But despite a better launch than anyone could have hoped for, Marvel Rivals isn’t entirely clear from controversy. Some users, including high-profile streamers such as AsmonGold, have discovered that certain, apparently innocuous words and phrases are banned in the game’s in-game chat; players can type them in and be flagged as inappropriate despite not containing any obviously offensive content. This has left some players very confused as to the meaning behind this seemingly random bout of censorship.

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The Censored Phrases in Marvel Rivals

The phrases in question range from real world locations to Disney characters like Winnie the Pooh. The banned phases and words include, but are not necessarily limited to:

  • Winnie the Pooh
  • Free Taiwan, and other phrases speaking positively of the country
  • Free Tibet, and other phrases speaking positively of the country
  • Free Hong Kong and other phrases related to the city
  • Tiananmen Square
  • 1989
  • Wuhan Virus
  • Mao Zedong

Marvel Rivals Censored Phrases Explained

NetEase, the company responsible for the development of Marvel Rivals, is a Chinese company. As a result of how the Chinese economy works, the government has a lot of control over the products that companies within its borders produce. Meaning that it’s almost a guarantee that these terms, which are almost exclusively related to the governance and geopolitics of China, were banned at the command of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials rather than the developers themselves.

China has a well-documented history censoring video games and the censored terms in Marvel Rivals all tie back into topics and concepts that the CCP would actively seek to suppress or otherwise take issue with. The sitting Chinese government does not recognize Taiwan, Tibet, or Hong Kong as their own individual states. Instead, the CCP refers to these locations as special administrative regions of China itself, rather than unique places with their own sovereignty. Similarly, the banned phrase “Wuhan Virus” is in reference to several theories that speculate that the COVID-19 virus originated in Wuhan. The phrase “Tiananmen Square” and year 1989 are used to reference the Tiananmen Square Massacre, wherein the Chinese government deployed the military on pro-democracy demonstrators, killing as many as 200 individuals and injuring as many as 3,000 more.

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Why is Winnie the Pooh Banned in Marvel Rivals?

While most of the banned phrases make sense with the added context of CCP censorship, something as innocuous as Winnie the Pooh being censored in Marvel Rivals may still seem out of place. A number of years ago, internet users jokingly started drawing comparisons between the cartoon bear and Xi Jinping, the general secretary of the CCP and the effective leader of China.

While most internet users in the West used these memes as nothing more than lighthearted jokes, users in Asia started adopting the Disney character as a political symbol of sorts. Soon the bear became a rallying point for those looking to express anti-CCP sentiments. As a result, all media depicting, mentioning, or even referencing Winnie the Pooh is heavily censored if not outright banned in China.

What Does the Marvel Rivals Censorship Mean for the Game?

Some might be surprised at the censorship in Marvel Rivals, but it’s not particularly uncommon for Chinese-made games to adhere to these types of policies. Some American companies like Blizzard have also been found to censor messages to better adhere to Chinese censorship standards, but in NetEase’s particular case, the developers’ hands are pretty much tied. Not adhering to these restrictions is quite literally against the law for them and could end with serious consequences for the company and its employees.

Realistically speaking, this doesn’t mean a lot for the game itself. Marvel Rivals content will still be released, balance patches will keep coming, and servers will stay up. Proponents of free speech can and should let their voices be heard on social media if they find the censorship distasteful, but due to the widespread nature and international scale of the issues at hand, it’s unlikely that the official stance on this matter will be reversed any time soon.

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