Marvel Rivals Season 9 Launches with Major Overhaul

The ninth season of the free-to-play hero shooter Marvel Rivals will launch on July 10, 2026, introducing a major overhaul of core game systems, new characters, and a new map. The update, titled "The Mystery of Thebes," is scheduled to go live at approximately 9:00 AM UTC, following a period of server downtime expected to last a couple of hours.

Season 9 will debut with the X-Men member Jubilee joining the roster as a Strategist class hero. Her abilities, as shown in official trailers, include firing energy plasmoids, deploying area-of-effect attacks, and an ultimate ability called Firework Finale that unleashes a massive ring of damaging and healing fireworks. A second character, The Hood, is confirmed to arrive in the second half of the season.

The update's most significant changes are a complete rework of the Team-Up ability system. Every hero will now have two Team-Up abilities to choose from, with players selecting one to be active at a time. Each loadout includes a Base Effect and an Enhanced Effect. Additionally, balance adjustments will affect approximately 80 percent of the game's existing roster.

One character receiving a focused redesign is Black Widow. Developers...