Marvel Rivals dataminers suspect developers are teasing them with lists of potential upcoming characters hidden in the game's code. NetEase and Marvel, however, insist their focus is on more important tasks—like actually developing the game.

Last month, dataminers started sharing names of potential future heroes discovered in Marvel Rivals' code. A few, like the Fantastic Four, were quickly confirmed as legitimate following an official announcement. But as the list grew, a new rumor spread through the community—some names might be fake, intentionally placed by developers to mislead dataminers.

Even now, the community remains divided over which datamined characters, if any, are genuinely being considered for the game.

We recently had the chance to ask Marvel Rivals producer Weicong Wu and Marvel Games executive producer Danny Koo whether they're secretly orchestrating an elaborate prank. It seems there's no intentional trickery—but all the names found in the code should still be taken with a grain of salt. Here's how Wu responded:

"First, we don't recommend anyone modify the game files," he explained. "Additionally, each character goes through a highly complex design process with extensive concepting, prototyping, development, and more. Some of that information may remain in the code, which could reflect directions we've explored—ideas that may or may not become part of our future plans. Whether they make it into the final pipeline depends heavily on the gameplay experience our players are looking for."

Koo added, "Having a ten-year roadmap would be ideal. But the team experiments with numerous heroes and playstyles. It’s like someone left behind a notebook full of rough notes, and a dataminer opened it without any context."

When asked directly if they were intentionally trolling fans, Koo replied: "No. We’d rather invest our time in actual game development."

During the same interview, we discussed how characters are selected for Marvel Rivals. The producers shared that the team plans updates about a year ahead and is committed to introducing new characters every month and a half. For each update, NetEase identifies which character types and abilities would best balance and diversify the roster. Wu noted that, rather than heavily tweaking existing heroes, the team focuses on introducing new characters and gameplay experiences to maintain freshness, fill gaps, support weaker heroes with team synergies, or counter overly dominant ones.

After compiling a list of possibilities, NetEase presents ideas to Marvel Games and begins initial design work. They then consider community excitement and upcoming Marvel releases—such as films or comic arcs—to help finalize the selection. This process explains why so many hero names might appear in the code: the team is constantly exploring a wide range of concepts.

Marvel Rivals impressed at launch, and each new character strengthens the experience. Human Torch and The Thing are set to join the roster on February 21. In our conversation, Wu and Koo also touched on the potential for a Nintendo Switch 2 release—more on that here.