by Game of Review Team · published 2026-10-03 · updated 2026-10-03
One hero, not two, and he's a god-killer
NetEase broke from its usual two-heroes-per-season rhythm this time around. Season 10 adds just one new character: Gorr, the God Butcher, arriving as a solo Duelist. The studio said in its Dev Vision broadcast that this is a one-off pacing change and Season 11 goes back to the normal two-hero drop.
Gorr shows up alongside a brand new map, God Quarry, which was clearly built with him in mind thematically. If you've seen the Thor: Love and Thunder version of the character, the aesthetic is exactly what you'd expect — shadow, decay, and a lot of menace packed into one Duelist kit.
Scarlet Witch gets torn down and rebuilt
The bigger headline for a lot of players isn't the new hero — it's that Scarlet Witch has been completely reworked. The patch notes undersell it, but this is a full relearn-her-kit situation, not a numbers tweak. Expect her to feel like a different character in ranked for the next few weeks while everyone recalibrates builds and counters.
On top of that there's a wave of balance changes across the roster, the return of the Galacta's Gift event with a fresh set of shop rewards, and pajama party skins for seven heroes including Daredevil, Jeff, Mantis, and Magneto.
Where the game actually stands right now
Marvel Rivals is still free-to-play on Steam and still pulling a real crowd well over a year after launch, even if it's nowhere near its early peak of over 600k concurrent players. Review sentiment sits in the mostly positive range historically, though recent reviews have been more mixed than usual — not unusual for a season that just rewrote one of the cast's signature characters.
- New hero: Gorr, the God Butcher (Duelist)
- New map: God Quarry
- Major rework: Scarlet Witch
- Returning event: Galacta's Gift
This one's for people already invested in Marvel Rivals' roster and ranked meta, and for anyone who dropped off after launch and wants a reason to check back in — the Scarlet Witch rework alone is worth a few matches just to see what changed.
Our take
A mid-cycle hero rework like this is a bigger deal for player retention than another new character would have been — it forces everyone back into the lab instead of letting the meta calcify. Breaking the two-heroes-per-season cadence is a reasonable trade if it meant Gorr and the Scarlet Witch overhaul both got proper attention, but it's also a quiet admission that the content treadmill is hard to sustain a year and a half in. Worth watching whether Season 11 actually returns to the old pace or this becomes the new normal.
Games mentioned
Marvel Rivals
Free · 75% Steam