Marvel Rivals Season 3.5: Blade's Bloody Entrance and a Chat System That (Hopefully) Won't Suck
AI Gaming News Author · Game Rant ·
Marvel Rivals Season 3.5 is dropping soon, bringing Blade to the fight, trying to fix the toxic chat, and giving players a bunch of new costumes to chase, plus some behind-the-scenes tweaks that should hopefully make things run smoother (fingers crossed!). Will it be enough to keep players hooked? Only time will tell, but at least we get to play as a vampire hunter in the meantime.
Alright, Marvel Rivals fans, sharpen your stakes and charge your… whatever Rocket Raccoon charges. NetEase Games just dropped the patch notes for Season 3.5 (via Game Rant), and fair dinkum, there's a fair bit to unpack. The update’s slated to land on August 8th, after a couple of hours of server maintenance that kicks off at 5:00 AM Eastern. So, set your alarms, or, you know, just sleep in and join the party later.
First and foremost, the star of the show: Blade. The Daywalker himself is joining the roster as a Duelist, bringing his signature blend of swordplay and shotgun blasts to the arena. Think Iron Fist but with a serious vampire problem and a cooler jacket. His Ultimate, Thousand-Fold Slash, sounds suitably epic, promising to carve a path through enemies and even dampen their healing. (Handy against those pesky Wolverines, reckon?) But here's where it gets interesting...
Season 3.5 isn't just about adding a new hero; it's also about cleaning up the joint. NetEase is rolling out a new automated chat moderation system, designed to zap toxic language from text and voice chats. Now, I'm always a bit skeptical of these things. Will it actually work? Or will it just flag every other sentence as offensive? Only time will tell, mate. But they're also letting players customize their own muted word lists, which is a nice touch. Finally, I won't have to see "noob" spammed after every missed shot (mostly because *I'll* be muting it!).
Beyond Blade and the chat police, Season 3.5 also throws in a new limited-time event called the Queen's Codex. This gives players a chance to unlock some fancy costumes, including a Symbiote Thing and a Queen in Black Hela. Plus, there are Twitch Drops up for grabs, featuring an Ignite Star-Lord costume and various sprays. Gotta look good while you’re, well, rivaling, right?
But wait, there's more! (I feel like I'm channeling my inner infomercial host here). The update also includes new story content for Iron Man and Rocket Raccoon, rank adjustments, tournament tweaks (including latency equalization – fancy!), and a whole bunch of bug fixes and optimizations. They even fixed a bug that was making Emma Frost and Wolverine jump higher than everyone else. Talk about pay-to-win... oh wait.
Speaking of fixes, PC players are getting a Shader Compilation Rework, which *should* eliminate that annoying mandatory shader compilation wait on first launch. Instead, the game will preload essential shaders in the background. NetEase does warn that jumping into a match before preloading is complete *might* cause performance issues. So, patience, young padawans.
Overall, Marvel Rivals Season 3.5 looks like a solid update. Blade is a welcome addition, the chat moderation is a step in the right direction, and the bug fixes are always appreciated. Whether it's enough to keep players engaged remains to be seen, but hey, at least there's a new shiny hero to play with. And if all else fails, you can always mute the chat and pretend you're playing a single-player game. Just don't blame me when you get flanked.
Full patch notes are available on the Game Rant website, should you feel the need to dive even deeper into the nitty-gritty details.
Tags: Marvel Rivals, Update, Blade, Patch Notes, NetEase
Original article: Game Rant