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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.
🐍 Lurking and ready to strike!
“The fates do have their little surprises, do they not? No less so for me than you, as my appearance gives stark testimony.”
Be reborn as a reckoning force and show the battlefield what true power is with the striking Lady Loki costume, first… pic.twitter.com/qkJtJ6jd3j
— Marvel Rivals (@MarvelRivals) December 30, 2025
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.
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James Whitbrook
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