At the end of 2024, NetEase Games launched Marvel Rivals, a game that lets players step into the shoes of iconic characters from the Marvel universe. While the project was initially met with a fair amount of skepticism, nearly two months after its release, the superhero title continues to deliver impressive results, both in terms of player engagement and viewership on streaming platforms. To put these achievements into perspective, Streams Charts compared the performance of Marvel Rivals to the launch of Overwatch 2 back in 2022.
For those unfamiliar, Marvel Rivals is a hero shooter where two teams of six players face off against each other. The game offers multiple modes, role-based hero categories, expansive maps with destructible environments, flashy skins, and plenty of other features that fans of the genre will recognize from games like Overwatch. That said, Marvel Rivals sets itself apart with a few key innovations: more diverse character mechanics, a third-person perspective, a unique synergy system between partnered heroes, and, of course, a roster of beloved Marvel superheroes, from Hulk and Spider-Man to Wolverine and Captain America.
In this article, we won’t be doing a traditional review of Marvel Rivals—game journalists have already written hundreds of articles on the topic, dissecting all the pros and cons of the game. Instead, we’ll focus on the viewership statistics of Marvel Rivals and its performance trends compared to Overwatch 2, its main competitor in the genre and a title that feels very similar in spirit.
Marvel Rivals and Overwatch 2 Viewership Comparison
Overwatch 2 was one of the biggest game releases of 2022. The game carried high expectations, as the sequel was supposed to not only bring back fans of the original Overwatch but also, to some extent, reboot the game’s professional scene. Unfortunately, not all plans came to fruition. The launch of Overwatch 2 can’t be called smooth (for various reasons), but the title still managed to attract a large audience on streaming platforms.
Marvel Rivals and Overwatch 2 Viewership Comparison in debut and second month
In its first month, Overwatch 2 racked up 138,500,000 Hours Watched (HW) on Twitch, with an average of 187,556 viewers and a peak viewership hitting 634,621. By comparison, Marvel Rivals had a much quieter debut on Twitch — streams for the game pulled in nearly three times fewer hours watched, with average and peak viewership sitting at 75,463 and 275,521, respectively. In short, by some metrics, Overwatch 2 outperformed Marvel Rivals by 2.5 times in its opening month. At first glance, that might seem like the end of the story when comparing the two games’ livestreaming performance. But if you dig into the viewership trends, the picture starts to shift.
While Overwatch 2 had a stronger initial surge in interest compared to Marvel Rivals, it also saw a much faster drop-off in its audience. By the second month after launch, the Overwatch 2 category on Twitch had plummeted by 65% across all viewership metrics, dipping below Marvel Rivals’ debut numbers. This downward trend continued for about six months — the game’s popularity kept slipping month after month until summer 2023, when things finally leveled out. Since then, the Overwatch 2 category on Twitch has only seen occasional spikes in viewership, usually tied to in-game events or updates, like the release of a new hero or a major patch.
Marvel Rivals and Overwatch 2 Comparison by Average Viewers on Twitch
What’s the buzz around Marvel Rivals? The game just launched recently, so its long-term success is still hard to gauge. But one thing’s clear: in its second month after release, the game not only maintained its audience, but actually grew it. Average viewership and peak online numbers for Marvel Rivals on Twitch surged by over 45% (at the time this was published). It showed a similar spike in the number of broadcast channels. In other words, the second month was even more successful for Marvel Rivals in livestreaming than the debut month — a pretty rare feat for a game.
When comparing the second month post-launch, Marvel Rivals is miles ahead of Overwatch 2 in terms of audience reach. The player online numbers are also in Marvel Rivals’ favor. According to SteamDB, Marvel Rivals had a 24-hour peak of just over 400,000 players, while Overwatch 2 peaked at just under 27,500 — almost 15 times lower.
Why did Marvel Rivals beat out Overwatch 2?
As mentioned earlier, this article isn’t about comparing Marvel Rivals and Overwatch 2 in terms of gameplay or mechanics. First off, that’s been covered extensively by our colleagues in gaming media, and second, preferences for one game over the other are purely subjective. Every gamer has their own tastes. Instead, we’re going to focus on the context behind both projects and how that could have impacted their viewer dynamics.
Overwatch 2 had a strong start in livestreaming because it had a solid foundation built from the original game. The sequel’s release brought back former fans and professional players, not to mention that by the time Overwatch 2 dropped, the original game already had an established group of streamers on platforms like Twitch. These were some of the key advantages Overwatch 2 had over Marvel Rivals.
When it comes to Marvel Rivals, the gaming community was initially pretty cautious. Players still had fresh memories of the Marvel’s Avengers failure by Crystal Dynamics — its servers were shut down just three years after launch, and the game was widely considered a commercial flop. There were other worries too: some felt that NetEase had missed the window by releasing the game when the heroic shooter genre wasn’t exactly at its peak (just look at what happened with Concord). Others were concerned that the game was just another cash grab aimed at comic book fans. Fortunately, those worries turned out to be unfounded. While Marvel Rivals may not have won everyone over, it definitely carved out its niche in the gaming world and found an audience in livestreaming.
Marvel Rivals and Overwatch 2 Comparison by Peak Channels on Twitch
So, how did Marvel Rivals manage to outpace Overwatch 2 in its second month? Several factors played a role. Overwatch 2 ran into some issues post-launch, including criticism over its monetization, a lack of new content, and technical problems — causing some players and viewers to lose interest. Plus, while Overwatch 2 did improve on some aspects of the first game, it didn’t bring enough new ideas to keep players hooked long-term. As a result, the game experienced a noticeable drop after the initial hype faded.
Marvel Rivals, however, had a different story. What started as skepticism turned into growing interest and engagement. The game proved to be high-quality, with solid gameplay and lots of content. More and more popular streamers are starting to take notice of the game, even some who typically don’t play hero shooters. And once that became clear, the power of the Marvel brand kicked in. The characters in Marvel Rivals are already familiar to gamers worldwide, having appeared in comics, movies, theme parks, and more. These are iconic heroes that writers and artists have spent decades shaping, long before personal computers or consoles even existed.
The sheer volume of content is a huge advantage for Marvel Rivals over Overwatch 2 and other games. To put it in perspective, Overwatch 2 adds around three new heroes each year. On the other hand, Marvel Rivals drops new characters almost every month, and with that kind of release schedule, they’ll have content to last for decades (and we haven’t even touched on the multiverse).
It’ll be interesting to compare Marvel Rivals and Overwatch 2 over a longer period, like one year after release. This can easily be done with Streams Charts tools, and if you go for the PRO subscription, you’ll have access to a ton of filters and more in-depth insights into how these games are performing in livestreaming.