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Tag: Marvel Rivals

  • Lady Loki Might Be the Most Impressive ‘Marvel Rivals’ Skin Yet

    Aside from a regular injection of heroes and villains from the Marvel multiverse, Rivals‘ cosmetic skins have been keeping the game fresh with riffs on iconic comic looks, homages to movies from the MCU (and beyond), and plenty of fun original ideas. But one of its most lavish skins yet is a wonderful merging of inventiveness and comics know-how to make one of the game’s most dastardly support heroes into a divine goddess.

    After a few teases here and there in recent weeks, today NetEase revealed the first official look at one of its most fascinating ideas for a skin yet: a complete gender-swap take on Loki. Inspired by Lady Loki’s appearance after her post-Ragnarok rebirth in 2007’s Thor run, the new skin isn’t just a model change for Loki as he currently appears in-game; she comes with her own unique animations and voice acting, provided by Dan Da Dan‘s Abby Trott (who is already familiar to the Rivals community as the voice of Illyana Rasputina, aka Magik). On top of that, she has some fun, unique emote flourishes and the usual special MVP animation.

    There have been plenty of Rivals skins in the past that have tweaked voice lines and sound effects already, and plenty that give some radical overhauls to the silhouette of a given character. And, of course, there have been plenty of skins covering all of Rivals‘ cast, male and female alike, with a bit of risque skin showing. But what makes Lady Loki stand out is what she represents in terms of completely gender-swapping the character, which Rivals hasn’t done before (outside of creative PC modders doing it themselves for fun, that is).

    It opens a very interesting set of floodgates for what the game could do next in terms of similar skins for other members of its roster. Loki’s sibling Thor is an easy potential next step, of course, giving us a skin based on Jane Foster’s Mighty Thor. Even though they’re distinctly separate characters in the comics, the arrival of Deadpool to the game in the next few weeks could leave us open to a Gwenpool variant, or one of the many female Spider-heroes could become a stand-in for Peter. It doesn’t just have to be gender swaps but could even reflect shared identities and mantles like Jean Grey and Madelyne Pryor, skinning over Jean’s fiery phoenix abilities with the demonic powers of the Goblin Queen.

    You can’t go too far with it, of course—otherwise you risk disappointing fans of characters who could be interesting mirrors to, or twists on, current members of the cast seeing their faves reduced to a skin rather than their own fleshed-out, unique member of the roster (no one would want to see She-Hulk, X-23, or Sam Wilson’s Cap not get their own unique selves alongside Bruce, Logan, and Steve, for example). But it’s still a fun new avenue for Rivals to start exploring, now that the seal on the proverbial Pandora’s box has been cracked open by Loki herself.

    Lady Loki will grace Marvel Rivals starting January 1, purchasable throughout the month from the in-game store.

    Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

    James Whitbrook

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  • The Game Awards 2025 – Play Every Xbox Nominated Game Today – Xbox Wire

    Summary

    • We’re excited to share that a half-dozen Xbox first-party titles (plus one movie) have been nominated for awards across multiple categories – voting is now open on The Game Awards official site.
    • You can play many of the nominees announced today with Xbox Game Pass, including top nominee Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, DOOM: The Dark Ages, South of Midnight, and Hollow Knight: Silksong.
    • Tune into The Game Awards on December 11 to see if your favorite games from 2025 take home an award.

    The Game Awards has officially revealed the full list of nominees for the year, and we’re thrilled to see such a wide range of unique titles being recognized for their contributions to gaming. Even better, many of these nominees can be played today across Xbox consoles, Xbox on PC, ROG Xbox Ally handhelds, Cloud, and with Xbox Game Pass!

    This year our first-party studios received nominations for Avowed, DOOM: The Dark Ages, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Ninja Gaiden 4, South of Midnight, and The Outer Worlds 2. Troy Baker’s pitch-perfect performance as Indiana Jones was recognized with a Best Performance nomination, and ‘A Minecraft Movie’, one of the biggest hits at the box office in 2025, was nominated for Best Adaptation.

    We’re also equally excited to see that many of our third-party partners have been nominated across a wide range of categories – many of which can be played with Game Pass. Ball x Pit, Blue Prince, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Hollow Knight: Silksong, and Rematch are all up for awards this year, and playable across devices as Xbox Play Anywhere titles. Additionally, Game Pass subscribers receive incredible benefits for nominees League of Legends, Valorant, and – starting tomorrow – Fortnite.

    Congratulations to all this year’s amazing nominees – and don’t forget, these nominations join titles on Xbox nominated across the Golden Joysticks, and even the Grammys!

    Remember, you can vote for your favorites right now over at TheGameAwards.com. See below for the full list of nominees that you can play today.

    First-Party Nominees

    Mike Nelson, Xbox Wire Editor

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  • A New ‘Marvel Rivals’ Mode Brings in Some ‘Marvel Zombies’

    Nearly a full year after release, Marvel Rivals is getting its first-ever PvE (player versus enemy) mode in the form of “Marvel Zombies.”

    Like the name implies, the mode is a collaboration with Marvel Animation and based on the recent Disney+ animated series of the same name. In the game, four players will take on endless hordes of the undead as Thor, Magik, Punisher, Jeff the Shark, and Blade, who each have different buffs or abilities specific to this mode. Players will also fight against two bosses: Zombie Namor and Scarlet Witch in her “Queen of the Dead” form, which are both from the show. The mode is a fun inclusion—zombies used to be all the rage for major video games back in the day, and it’s easy to imagine Rivals would’ve had it even without doing any TV synergy.

    NetEase is currently keeping mum on what rewards or progression awaits with this new “Zombie” mode. Weeks ago, the developer revealed Marvel Rivals would get some Zombies-themed skins for characters like Blade, Spider-Man, and Scarlet Witch, and it’s a fun addition just in time for the spooky season. Hopefully more PvE modes are on the horizon, and not just ones connected to MCU projects.

    More information about the “Zombies” mode and a longer trailer will both come before its launch on Thursday, October 23.

    Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

    Justin Carter

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  • ‘Marvel Rivals’ Is Adding Daredevil and ‘Marvel Zombies’ Skins Next Month

    We’ve known since the start of the latest season that Matt Murdock would be the second hero joining the angelic Angela in Marvel Rivals‘ ever-growing roster. But now we know exactly when we can get our hands on him, as well as the game’s first Halloween celebration in style, which is bringing a little Marvel Zombies flavoring with it.

    In a new update video released by NetEase today, the Rivals team confirmed that Daredevil—the latest damage-focused duelist added to Rivals‘ roster post-launch—will be joining the game on October 10 as part of the season 4.5 update. Little has been revealed about Daredevil’s toolkit in the game yet, but it was teased that he will be able to use his radar sense to pick out priority targets, as well as use his agility to perform gap closers before primarily fighting in melee range with his billy clubs.

    Matty is the fifth duelist out of the 10 characters added to Marvel Rivals post-launch, so I and my fellow strategist mains can languish for a little while longer hoping that next season it’ll be our time to shine (imagine if they’d somehow made Daredevil a support character. Health-regenerating concussions from his clubs like he’s doing pressure point therapy?), but Daredevil isn’t the only fun addition coming to the game next month.

    As well as a new game mode that will be revealed at the Thailand Game Show October 17, season 4.5 will also see Rivals‘ first Halloween-themed event, bringing with it a bevy of spooktacular skins.

    Although most of the designs are original, like Peni Parker and Namor getting Day of the Dead-inspired skins and resident sharky menace Jeff being turned into an adorable pumpkin, at least two skins coming as part of the event are directly inspired by the recently released Marvel Zombies animated series. Both Scarlet Witch and Blade will receive Zombies skins, with Wanda being turned into her undead MCU look, while Blade will get a Moon Knight makeover to reflect his role as the avatar of Khonshu in the TV series.

    It’s a perfectly timed turnaround for Rivals to get a bit of MCU synergy again, but it’ll be interesting to see what else the Rivals team is whipping up for their first chance to celebrate spooky season.

    Marvel Rivals‘ latest update goes live on October 10.

    Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

    James Whitbrook

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