Marvel Rivals director defends female character skins and points to "classic comic designs"
"I'm very grateful these deigns have been well received by the majority of players."
Since first gracing our screens at the end of last year, Marvel Rivals has built an impressive audience. But some onlookers have questioned whether its female character designs verge too far into sexualisation.
Characters like Psylocke, Emma Frost and the Invisible Woman have all gone viral on social media for their rather revealing skins, earned in-game or bought from the store for real-life money.
During a recent Rivals Assembled interview, Marvel Rivals creative director Guanggang was asked about accusations of Marvel Rivals being a "gooner game". That is a slang term that is used to describe any game which has over-sexualised characters.
"Our design is inspired by classic comic themes, including some very outstanding skins like Mantis and also Psylocke's Vengeance," he replied, "these all come from classic comic designs, and we create some more fashionable designs based on them to gain players' appreciation. I think this also reflects the broad recognition from our players."
Later in the interview, Guanggang goes on to explain the process behind developing some of the skin designs: "As mentioned earlier with the Squirrel Girl and the Krakoa Resort skin, these are actually designs based on real-world themes and the season's storyline.
"For designs like these, we try our best to integrate the storylines from the season, including elements from Krakoa, and blend popular elements from real life.
"We create new designs based on that and I'm very grateful these deigns have been well received by the majority of players."
The debate about 'gooner games' is not a new one, with similar discourse hitting games such as Stellar Blade and The First Descendant in the last couple of years.
But while these accusations are perhaps more apt for a game like The First Descendant, which initially blew up on launch in part thanks to its viral designs before almost immediately haemorrhaging players, it feels reductive to say the same of Marvel Rivals.
Rivals continues to rack up huge player numbers, with concurrent player numbers on Steam peaking at over 100,000 every day.
Consistently racking up these kinds of figures speaks to a game that is genuinely high quality, and not one that is simply throwing revealing skins at players to try and keep them interested or garner viral moments.
Could some of these skins be classified as 'gooner adjacent'? Probably. Is Marvel Rivals a 'gooner game'? Probably not. Maybe it's just fashionably designed.
Read more on Marvel Rivals:
- Marvel Rivals codes - full list and how to redeem
- Is Marvel Rivals free? - what you can pay for
- Marvel Rivals crossplay - is it cross-platform?
- Marvel Rivals team-ups explained - all combinations
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