Marvel Rivals loses strength: the premiere of Season 3 has almost half the players of the previous one

The Season 3 of Marvel Rivals debuts with worrying figures on Steam.

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During its first weeks, Marvel Rivals was one of the strongest surprises in competitive multiplayer on PC. However, the initial momentum has not been enough to maintain a stable user base, and the recent release of Season 3 confirms a increasingly sharp decline.

Despite new gameplay features and balance adjustments, the new season has launched with almost half the number of players as the previous one. And what’s even more concerning: it hasn’t even reached the peak achieved by the mid-season update of Season 2. The community remains active, but many regular players have not returned.

Marvel Rivals Season 3: user decline and criticism of matchmaking

According to public data from SteamDB, Season 2 reached a maximum of 315,196 concurrent players on April 12, while the recent Season 3 has only reached 163,232. Even the 2.5 update, which arrived at the end of May, had better numbers (190,368 players).

Although Marvel Rivals remains one of the most played titles on Steam over the weekend, the decline between seasons is notable. Criticism points directly to the matchmaking system, which does not include placement matches. This causes experienced players to be mixed with new users after a season restart, unbalancing matches from the first minute.

In addition, the title continues to accumulate mixed reviews on Valve’s platform, and a large part of the community considers that adding new heroes does not solve the game’s structural problems. For now, Season 3 has served to generate a temporary surge, but it will be necessary to wait and see if it is enough to retain players until the arrival of Season 4.