Marvel Rivals

Marvel Rivals is six against six, third-person, with a roster drawn from across Marvel’s comics and films. Objectives are the familiar shape of payloads and points, but the character kits are bigger and sillier than the genre usually allows: Groot builds walls, Jeff the Land Shark swallows the enemy team, and the maps are partly destructible. It is a lot to look at and a lot to learn, and it is free on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series.

The reason it scores so well on “Better together” is the team-up system. Certain pairs and trios of heroes gain new abilities only when they are on the same team: Rocket can ride on Groot, Hulk charges Iron Man’s armour, and so on. A group of friends who coordinate their picks gets access to things a team of strangers never sees. Matches are short, queues are instant and a six-stack fills the whole team, so there is nobody outside the call.

NetEase has kept the pace fast since launch, with new heroes every season, new maps and a ranked ladder. The business model is better than most. Every hero is free on day one, cosmetics are the only thing sold, and the seasonal pass, unusually, stays available after the season ends, so nobody is punished for taking a month off. Voice chat is built in with team and party channels.

The gaps are technical. Cross-play works for quick match across all three platforms, but competitive keeps PC and console players apart, and there is no cross-progression at all, so a friend who switches from console to PC starts again. The visual noise can be overwhelming for a newcomer, and some heroes are genuinely difficult. Keep the first evening in quick play and put the new person on Rocket or Cloak and Dagger.