LogInMade them harder to install? Yes. Does NetEase dislike it? Most certainly. Prohibited by the User Agreement? Sure is. Impossible? Not at all.
As was predicted by virtually everyone, Marvel Rivals' immense success was taken to a whole new level over the weekend with the release of the Season 1: Eternal Night Falls update, which helped the acclaimed hero shooter break its own concurrent user peak on Steam, setting a new record of 644K players.
Alongside the long-awaited arrival of Fantastic Four's Mister Fantastic and Invisible Woman, the update introduced several new maps, added a new game mode, and, to the unpleasant surprise of many, disabled one of Marvel Rivals' most fun features – custom-made mods – prompting a wave of pushback and disappointment online.
"Why 'disappointment' and not, say, 'anger' or 'outrage'?" you might ask. Well, it all comes down to the title's EULA, which every player has to agree to before diving into the game. While mods have undeniably become an integral part of the Rivals experience for many, the Terms of Use have explicitly prohibited them from the very beginning, categorizing mods – on two separate occasions, as you can see below – alongside cheats, hacks, and bots in the eyes of the game's developer, NetEase, which is hardly surprising, given that Marvel Rivals is a free-to-play game, and selling in-game cosmetics is the developer's only way to make the project not just successful, but also profitable.
What's more, shortly after Eternal Night Falls went live, a NetEase representative reaffirmed that "It is not recommended to modify any game files, as doing so carries the risk of getting banned," prompting a wave of gaming outlets, YouTubers, and even some Game Developers to fill the information space with sensational headlines about Marvel Rivals "banning" custom mods – an understandable reaction, but, as it turns out, not entirely accurate.
As explained by X0XLEAK, in essence, what the Season 1 update did was introduce asset hash checking, with the game now constantly checking its files to ensure that the version of Marvel Rivals a player runs matches an official, pre-approved digital fingerprint. If a mod was installed and certain aspects of the game – like visuals, sounds, cutscenes, etc. – were tweaked, a hash mismatch would occur, and the mod would be blocked, with the user potentially receiving a ban or a warning of some sort shortly after for violating the EULA.
In even simpler terms – is it now harder to create and run mods? Yes. Does NetEase disapprove of modding? Most definitely. Should you break the rules of Marvel Rivals and play with mods? Absolutely not. But are they impossible to install and use now? Not at all.
A modding enthusiast, MR COY, for example, has shared a comprehensive tutorial explaining how you can still add custom skins to the game even after the update, providing all the necessary links to keep playing with mods. YouTuber ItsDeepz also followed suit, sharing an easy guide with a "temporary solution for all your modding endeavors." The methods for both guides were first discovered by the Marvel Rivals Modding community, which you can also check out on Discord for more information.
Just to reiterate, mods are prohibited by the game's official rules, so if your account gets suspended unexpectedly, don't say I didn't warn you. But if you're feeling adventurous, you might want to check out this fun mod that turns Reed Richards – introduced with the Season 1 update – into Monkey D. Luffy from One Piece.
Mods in Marvel Rivals are a tricky topic – on one hand, they could reduce NetEase's profits and, as such, shorten the game's lifespan, but on the other, they enhance the overall experience for players, attracting more of them and expanding the base of potential customers. Even with an abundance of mods, the game still raked in nearly $140 million in its first month since launch, so it is up for debate whether the lack of mods would have pushed more players to purchase official skins or if the numerous bans for mod usage would have frightened off new gamers and prevented Rivals from becoming the success it is today.
And what do you think about mods in Marvel Rivals? Do they help the game prosper, or just bring its expiration date closer? Leave your thoughts in the comments!
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