Then again, the Marvel Rivals developers have the luxury of watching a similar game strike its own course and falter over the years. Overwatch had an incredibly strong start as a hero shooter. The opening cinematic — a museum fight where Tracer and Winston faced off against Reaper and Winston over the powerful Doomfist relic — was absolutely electrifying.

Good artists copy, great artists steal. That may in part explain the massive success of Marvel Rivals, very much an Overwatch clone.

Marvel Rivals inspired little in me when it first launched, with its blatant mimicry of Blizzard’s Overwatch 2, but Rivals Season 1 is starting to change my mind