Marvel Rivals Lead Says Doctor Strange’s Portals Were Challenging To Make

Marvel Rivals is almost an anomaly. The hero shooter not only looks and performs well, it’s also fun to play, has a healthy content roadmap, and, most importantly, does not feature predatory microtransactions. It’s no wonder that the game has managed to hold on to its player count for longer than any other recent multiplayer game.

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There’s also the fact that we get to play as our favourite Marvel heroes and villains, with their powers tuned perfectly to fit the hero shooter genre. Things like using Jeff’s Ult to toss a whole team off the map and Magneto’s ult to send Iron Man’s ult back at him add to the fun. But the most creative of these is Doctor Strange’s portals. Understandably, NetEase had a tough time with them.

Marvel Rivals Devs Had A Hard Time Dealing With Doctor Strange’s Portals

Speaking to Epic Games, technical lead designer Ruan Weikang revealed that it wasn’t easy to make the portals work the way they do. Unlike games like Portal and Splitgate, which require the portal to be on a flat surface, Marvel Rivals allows you to place them in mid air, at any angle. This proved to be an “unprecedented challenge” for the developers.

“Creating portals that enable real-time spatial connections and bi-directional combat interactions not only presented complex gameplay implementation challenges,” said Weikang. “But also introduced unprecedented performance demands when combined with advanced graphics features”.

Weikang went into deep technical detail about all the things that the team tried, but those resulted in substantial CPU and GPU stress. Eventually, the team decided to implement a “modified ViewPort split-screen implementation. This approach integrates portal rendering directly into the main view pipeline.”

Weikang concluded, saying “the end result successfully captures the essence of Doctor Strange’s iconic abilities while adding meaningful tactical depth to gameplay, ultimately justifying the technical investment.”

Thanks to this innovative technique, you can pull off some great stunts like tricking a team off a ledge as they rush out of their spawn area, or insta-killing Punisher and his turret.

Third-Person Shooter

Action

Multiplayer

Systems

Released

December 6, 2024

ESRB

T For Teen // Violence

Developer(s)

NetEase Games

Publisher(s)

NetEase Games

Genres