I played a lot of Marvel Rivals last night. It’s one of the biggest games in the world right now, and like a fool I decided to neglect its initial season until there was only a few hours left before it vanished for good. After grinding through several matches and progressing through the final few pages of the battle pass, I felt satisfied and ready for the season to come. But then I realised that, to my horror, there is no cross-progression in the NetEase hero shooter.
I’ve taken this feature for granted in recent years, because developers have done an incredible job of making it feel commonplace. Fortnite, Overwatch, Destiny, Call of Duty and myriad others allow me to create an account and have everything I do translated to any other platform I could end up playing on. Years worth of progression and unique cosmetics are available on console, PC, and mobile with just a few button presses, so to see a ubiquitous feature absent in one of the biggest live-service games in years is just strange.
Marvel Rivals Is Too Good For Progression To Feel This Constrained
Once upon a time, cross progression felt like an overly ambitious pipedream. I remember the time I did two individual playthroughs of Destiny on PS4 and Xbox One, so I could play with a group of friends across both platforms, putting the hours in to create two guardians since I didn’t have any other choice.
The same went for Call of Duty, if you were the sort of idiot with a desire to play on multiple devices. It was fresh and exciting in some ways to prove yourself all over again, but as online games became a bigger part of my life, it just became frustrating.
You had a different level, different unlocks, and different outlook on each game you played. This was years before we would entertain terms like loot box and battle pass, before developers understood the ecosystems they were creating and the value its audiences placed on them. All you had was a level and an endless amount of experience points to earn.
I am still somewhat ashamed at the level of excitement I felt at learning that Blizzard was offering a way to merge all of my Overwatch accounts into a single experience. Now I can show off how much of a loser I am.
Cross Progression Should Be The Norm For Modern Live-Service Games
I have spent hundreds on Overwatch and Fortnite, so there is an expectation for all of my financial investments and hard work to be reflected regardless of the platform I use to play. Most big games have risen to the occasion, but that’s not the case with Marvel Rivals. It currently offers no way to link your different platforms, nor is there an account you can make to reflect everything you unlock across seasons.
As someone who works at a desk on a relatively decent gaming PC, I am not immune to a cheeky lunchtime session of Overwatch to earn some experience or even go up a couple of levels. And if I fancy playing more in the evening on my PS5 or Xbox Series X, I can log on safe in the knowledge that I’ll be contributing to the same battle pass. Premium skins that I decide to purchase outside the seasonal events are also available wherever I play, something I’ve held off buying in Marvel Rivals because I know they won’t carry over at all.
Its first season is here, destined to bring a total of four new heroes and a battle pass stuffed with content alongside a premium store I know is going to offer some killer costumes. But it has already proven a double-edged sword as I have no desire to play on PC when I know I find most of my progression on PS5, so why bother wasting time on other platforms? Given crossplay is already present, it’s bizarre that progression hasn’t followed in its footsteps. If we’re lucky, it’s only a matter of time until NetEase takes notice and steps up to the plate.
