Marvel Rivals to get two new heroes every three month season, say NetEase, and no, they're not adding role queue

rockpapershotgun.com:

There are currently 35 heroes in Marvel Rivals, split between the roles of Vanguard (tanks), duellists (DPS) and Strategists (support). That's plenty to get your head around, and the roster is expanding rapidly. NetEase have announced that they plan to introduce a new hero approximately every six weeks - in other words, twice per three-month season. I wonder how long it'll take them to probe beyond the obvious Marvel headliners and start seriously abrading the bottom of the Connected Universe barrel. Nagneto, for example. Or how about J. Pennington Pennypacker, who shoots coins out of his wrists?

All that's from an interview with the Metro, in which Guangyun Chen spills the beans on questions of hero design "Every season we'll be rolling out fresh seasonal stories, new maps, and new heroes," he said "We'll actually be breaking down each season into two halves. The length of one season is three months. And for each half of the season, we will introduce a new hero."

The just-launched Marvel Rivals Season 1 is seemingly juicier than the norm. It introduces several new heroes in the shape of the Fantastic Four, together with three new maps, a Doom Match game mode and some special events.

Elsewhere in the interview with Metro, Chen expounds upon the game's competitive design. One detail that catches my eye is NetEase's decision not to enforce a role lock, which would ensure an even spread of Vanguards, Duellists and Strategists per team, but might also scare off the antisocial people who just want to play DPS. You know who you are.

"Yeah, so we totally get that the community is discussing role lock and role queue," said Chen, when asked whether NetEase would consider changing their stance here. "At its core, it's really about the game balance. So, what we want to offer is more line-up or more team comp possibilities through our hero design and our team-up mechanic. So, we'll be taking a little bit more of a Marvel-inspired approach.

"It's all about giving the players the