When NetEase’s Overwatch-inspired hero shooter, Marvel Rivals, was launched last year, it was only available on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. Now, however, the company is preparing to bring its hit title to last-gen platforms. NetEase recently confirmed that a PS4 version of Marvel Rivals will be launched alongside the game’s Season 4 update, “The Heart of the Dragon,” on September 12. The release of this PS4 port is coming at a very interesting time, not only for Marvel Rivals itself, but also for the video game industry as a whole.
The PS4 has been around for over a decade, but companies have only recently stated to abandon the console in favor of supporting current-gen platforms. HoYoverse announced that it would be shuttering the PS4 version of Genshin Impact early next year, and even Krafton confirmed that it would end support for PUBG on PS4 and Xbox One. NetEase, however, is doing the exact opposite with Marvel Rivals, and is instead opting to support the PS4 this late into its lifespan. Some may think that this is a bad idea, given how demanding of a game Marvel Rivals is, but apparently the title will perform a lot better on the PS4 than expected.
Marvel Rivals runs on Unreal Engine 5, which doesn’t exactly have a good track record when it comes to optimization. Many recent games that use the engine have notoriously struggled with performance woes at launch.
According to NetEase, owners of the base PS4 will be able to run Marvel Rivals at a locked 30 FPS with a resolution of 1080p. PS4 Pro users, meanwhile, will be able to play it at 1440p 60 FPS, which is somewhat comparable to the performance of the game on the technologically-superior Xbox Series S. On both consoles, Marvel Rivals will take up approximately 40 GB of hard drive space, and it sadly won’t have any 120 FPS modes, like it does on Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5. Even still, the fact that Marvel Rivals is able to run this well on PS4 bodes well for the possibility of the game coming to the Nintendo Switch 2 in the future.
Although NetEase hasn’t officially announced any plans to bring Marvel Rivals to Nintendo platforms, some of the developers at the studio have expressed interest in the idea. During the DICE Summit in Las Vegas last February, Marvel Rivals producer Weicong Wu told IGN that NetEase was “already in contact with Nintendo, and working on [getting] some development kits” for the Switch 2. He then added that, if he and his team could “provide great performance” for Marvel Rivals on Switch 2, they would be open to porting it to the console.
Unfortunately, as of July 2025, the company seemingly hasn’t started development on a Switch 2 port of Marvel Rivals just yet. The director of the game, Guangyun Chen, recently revealed in a statement to Video Gamer that NetEase is “still in the process of obtaining” a Switch 2 dev kit. Once they’re able to do so, he said that NetEase intends to “conduct a thorough evaluation and provide a response” on whether the game can run well on Nintendo’s hardware.
The inability to get a development kit for the Nintendo Switch 2 is not a problem that’s exclusive to NetEase. Many major studios, particularly those who make free-to-play games, have reported difficulties with obtaining a Switch 2 dev kit of their own. For whatever reason, Nintendo has apparently been very picky about the companies it chooses to provide dev kits to. While this may change in the future, it will probably take a while for a Nintendo Switch 2 port of Marvel Rivals to come to fruition because of this. That said, given that it’s being ported to PS4, at least the game will likely run well on the Switch 2 regardless.
9/10
December 6, 2024
T For Teen // Violence
NetEase Games
NetEase Games
Unreal Engine 5
