Following an extremely sudden cut to the Marvel Rivals development team, it appears NetEase is going through even larger internal discussions about releasing an

Marvel Rivals is a big hit, but there was a time when its very existence was in doubt. That's according to a new Bloomberg report on developer NetEase and its CEO William Ding, which says that before the game was released there were discussions about cancelling it outright. NetEase has denied the claim.

Marvel Rivals has been a huge hit for NetEase. The Chinese publisher recently reported the free-to-play hero shooter had over 40 million players. But the Overwatch clone was almost canceled over the licensing fees the company would owe to Disney for using its popular comic book characters.

NetEase Games has revealed a balance overhaul for Marvel Rivals set to go live on February 21, 2025. Update 20250221, which kicks off Season 1.5 of the hero shooter, refines several of the available characters with ability and stat adjustments.

In Marvel Rivals' case, NetEase says it's being used to provide "confidential information like damage and healing statistics" and allowing players to "selectively ban heroes, predict opponents' ultimate abilities, and more, severely undermining the fairness of our game."

Marvel Rivals developer NetEase has officially banned popular third-party plug-in Blitz from future matches. In an announcement shared online, NetEase called the information showcased by Blitz "confidential,