So, Marvel Rivals just did something weird: the game’s next major update will mark the inauguration of Deadpool within an already filled-to-the-brim roster of heroes and villains. The thing is: what exactly will Deadpool do in the game?
Spotted first by journalist Miller Ross on X/Twitter, a new screengrab from the game lists Deadpool as belonging to the Vanguard class of characters. However, the original announcement — made during the Game Awards ceremony last week, presented the “Merc With A Mouth” as Marvel Rivals’ new Duelist representative.
The game’s publisher — China’s NetEase — did not come forward with any sort of statement regarding the matter, so fans got to speculation in order to find out what’s going on: some claim the company has messed up its announcement somehow and is now hoping to quietly, “hushly”, change the character’s class without too many people noticing.
Kinda late for that, I reckon…
The other possibility, albeit one much less likely, is that Deadpool will be Marvel Rivals’ first character to occupy multiple roles. Honestly, I can see that happening as, canonically speaking, everything weird in the Marvel universe tends to follow or happen to Deadpool. The comics see him breaking the fourth wall and talking to the reader directly routinely, so a dual-class anti-hero in Marvel Rivals wouldn’t be too far off the left field, honestly.
Vanguard x Duelist: what are the differences and which class would serve Deadpool best in Marvel Rivals
According to NetEase’s own description — and this is us being short and sweet, here — Vanguards are most commonly used to claim space in the battlefield, soaking up damage and mitigating the opponent’s offensive capabilities against your own teammates. While not a “tank” in the literal sense, they do serve that purpose by bringing high defense and high health points so enemies will be busy fighting them for longer, leaving other characters to go after other objectives.
Meanwhile, Duelists can be seen as any given fight’s “finishers”, swooping in alongside other classes of fighters in order to deal massive damage in a short time and space. You don’t wanna rely on them for defense given they have little to offer in terms of health points — instead, a duelist is more like if you wanna overkill an already downed, worned-out opponent.
As for which of the two serves Deadpool best, well, it’s a coin toss, really: the announcement trailer — seen below — is completely cinematic, so we didn’t get to see any gameplay piece with the character running.
While a Duelist can make more sense given Deadpool’s acrobatic capabilities and his mercenary background, a Vanguard is not out of the question easy: he does have a healing factor that, in Marvel canon, is even faster than Wolverine’s — comic panels have shown him recovering from large-scale injuries and even regrowing lost limbs, so a guy who can take so much damage would certainly fit the description of a Vanguard, if NetEase implements this nicely in the gameplay.
Either way, we’re still a ways from finding out: Deadpool will officially join the Marvel Rivals roster on January 16th, during the game’s 6.0 update.
Marvel Rivals is available as a free to play download on PlayStation 5, PC (Windows), Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 4.
