Big hype this week as the first trailer for Marvel Rivals was released. I cannot wait until everyone can play this game, because it’s going to be awesome. People are talking about it like it’s Marvel’s Overwatch, but when it comes out, that comparison is going to turn itself all the way around, and Rivals is going to be the standard by which this kind of game is judged and enjoyed.

I also want to note that despite the press release language that the Rivals storyline was “crafted by the Netease writing team,” there were actual humans involved, and one of them was me. I worked on Rivals from November 2019 to June 2023, give or take an email here and there. The basic storyline of Rivals, involving Doctor Doom screwing up time and creating the Timestream Entanglement? I did that. The big in-game currency/substance, which I won’t name here? That one’s mine too. The various scrambled Marvel universe locations? Some mine, some coming from the Marvel Games team, some a collaboration. The thousands of lines of dialogue in the game, and the hero backstories from different universes? A whole lot mine, with much other work coming from other writers who I hope will/encourage to raise their hands like I’m doing here. (Marvel writers, Netease writers, any other freelancers: Celebrate, be proud!)

Writers, if we don’t claim credit for what we have done, no one is going to offer it. I am proud of the work I did on Marvel Rivals, and proud of the work everyone else did on Marvel Rivals. The game is going to rock. Here’s hoping everyone who helped create it — writers, artists, designers, producers, programmers — gets their share of credit.

Excelsior!