The fervor for Marvel Rivals is so strong that people are willing to risk their accounts to turn Iron Man into Vegeta and Mantis into a fishnets-wearing goth. There are so many people downloading custom skins and performance tweaks on NexusMods that Marvel Rivals is competing with Skyrim and Cyberpunk 2077 for having the most popular PC mods this month.
Anyone using these mods can get banned because they technically violate the game’s terms of use, which prohibit “cheats, automation software (bots), hacks, mods, or any other unauthorized third-party software”. In December, NetEase warned players in the Marvel Rivals Discord that modifying game files “may lead to unexpected issues,” after players discovered a way to tweak graphics settings not surfaced in the game.
When asked whether it will take action against players using mods, NetEase told Polygon, “It is not recommended to modify any game files, as doing so carries the risk of getting banned.” So far, however, we have seen no reports of players getting punished for using mods.
Right now, the most popular mod is, well, a mod manager. Over 88,000 people have downloaded user MerryJoyKey’s Mods Manager for Marvel Rivals to simplify the whole process. Right behind it is a mod that supposedly improves the performance of the game, with over 66,000 downloads. And then there’s Vegeta as Iron Man, a mod that does exactly what it says on the tin. The modder behind it, Leonaura, also turned Iron Fist into Goku. You’d think this could spark clips of these two battling like it was an episode of Dragon Ball Z, but mods are only visible in your own version of the game.
Even though Marvel Rivals has a healthy number of skins for a game that hasn’t been out for more than a month, the overwhelming amount of cosmetic mods shows people are hungry for more — even if there’s a chance they could get them in trouble. But I also doubt NetEase is ever going to turn Luna Snow into Hatsune Miku, so someone had to do it.
