Once again, Marvel Rivals has excited fans by introducing a fan-favorite character into the game, complete with a creative move set and unique design. First announced with the rest of Season 8, Cyclops had been highly requested by players due to his status as leader of the X-Men which already had many members as part of the game’s roster. Now, the character has received a gameplay trailer to show off his playstyle. In addition, a new map and further story details were revealed in the new dev update led by creative director, Guangguang.
With his powerful ranged optic blasts, Cyclops is a member of the duelist class. Throughout the trailer, he can be seen using simple attacks from high vantage points in addition to beams that hit a wide area and even ricochet between enemies and the surrounding environment. He is also able to replicate the movement shown off in the reveal trailer by using his optic blasts to move more quickly around the battlefield. At the end of the trailer, Cyclops unleashes a massive blast that damages enemies in a massive path ahead of him. In the dev update, this is explained as Cyclops letting go of his restraints.
In addition to the new character, the update will be adding new maps, with K’un-Lun: Shenloong Arena, a map where legends are made. It features a massive temple with falling blossoms and a large dragon looking over the arena. Finally, the dev update went over the continuation of the story for Marvel Rivals, explaining that after his rescue, Cyclops became unable to stop his optic blasts without the help of Jean Grey.
An evolving story is common in games with regular seasonal updates and is unique in Marvel Rivals due to the characters being pulled from existing sources. Season 8.5 is set to begin on June 12th.