Marvel Rivals is adding a 'non-combat map' where players can 'hang out, dance, watch videos, read books, and let your imagination run wild'

Marvel Rivals season 5 is set to go live on November 14, and yes, Gambit and Rogue—Mr. and Mrs. X, as Guangguang, aka creative director Guangyun Chen, describes them—are finally set to take their place in the lineup. But more interesting to me is the addition of a new map based on New York's Times Square, which will be a "non-combat map" where people can just hang out and be cool.

The new map is notable to me because Marvel Rivals is a game that is explicitly about not being cool with your fellow costumed crusaders: Blade, you'll recall, can hack his opponents into itty-bitty pieces in an outburst of violence that looks like it belongs in an Elden Ring boss fight. As someone who doesn't play Marvel Rivals I thought at first that I was misunderstanding what was happening, but no, Guangguang is quite clear: No fisticuffs in Times Square!

"Season 5 brings you the grand debut of New York's Times Square," he said in today's pre-season 5 update video. "This is a non-combat map that can host up to 100 players. Hang out, dance, watch videos, read books, and let your imagination run wild.

"We've seen so many fun, friendly meets up in the Doom Match 'Sanctum Sanctorum' map, so we wanted to give everyone a dedicated space for socializing, relaxing, and sharing cool moments outside of battle."

I think it's a great idea, and it brings to my mind thoughts of Arc Raiders: It's a very different sort of game where PvP combat is optional, unlike Marvel Rivals, but the way so many players have opted to give peace a chance bears a thematic similarity to this non-combat map. Shooting each other is fun, yes, but sometimes it's nice to just chill out a bit, maybe compliment someone's outfit or talk about the wild adventure you just had—especially when shooting each other is literally all there is to do otherwise. I wouldn't want to be doing it all the time, or even most of the time, but it sounds like fun as an occasional diversion, especially if NetEase maintains the map with content and activity updates.

And yes, you can even do the Spider-Man Pointing Meme:

So that's the big hook here for me, a weirdo who enjoys not shooting at people in my multiplayer shooters. The bigger response among fans, perhaps predictably, is centered around the looming arrival of Gambit and Rogue, in particular the fact that Gambit is a strategist, Marvel Rivals' support class.

"In battle, he can combine his Chronovium-enhanced cards to unlock kinetic shifting to heal allies, cleanse negative effects, or deal damage, knocking back enemies and applying anti-heal," Guanguang says in the video. "When teammates need help or foes rush in, Gambit can channel energy into his staff, using nimble movement martial arts to take down threats. When activating his ultimate ability, Gambit launches kinetic-charged aces at all nearby allies, supercharging their jump abilities and adding explosive power to their attacks."

That should make PC Gamer's resident Rivaller Elie Gould happy: They wrote last week that "one of the next heroes in Season 5 should really be a Strategist" to help make up for the game's disproportionately high number of Duelists. So there you go, Elie, that's one for you. As for what Rogue brings to the table, that hasn't yet been confirmed but we'll doubtless be hearing about it soon.

Guangguang also announced in the video that Marvel Rivals is getting a new mode called Annihilation, which is basically the Conquest team deathmatch mode but with teams of 18 battling it out on a new Grand Garden map. The Annihilation mode is set to go live on November 27.