The Marvel Universe is expansive and chockful of some of pop culture's greatest heroes. NetEase Games is taking the word "hero" literally and placing the characters from Marvel in a free-to-play 6v6 hero shooter. Marvel Rivals promises to bring the most popular and iconic superheroes and supervillains to the arena with destructible environments, unique Team-Up skills, and more.

Marvel Rivals offers 6v6 PVP action featuring arenas from across the Marvel Multiverse, including Asgard and Tokyo 2099. The title touts a deep roster of heroes and villains to choose from, including members of the Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, X-Men, and more, all with unique Team-Up skills that play off various synergies between heroes. The closed alpha in May will feature more than a dozen characters, while the announce trailer (below) features 18 characters that represent the current roster.

The Roster So Far

In case you found yourself scrubbing through the footage in the reveal trailer to see how many characters you could spot, we've listed all 18 of the characters that appear in the initial Marvel Rivals footage right here.

• Black Panther
• Doctor Strange
• Groot
• Hulk
• Iron Man
• Loki
• Luna Snow
• Magik
• Magneto
• Mantis
• Namor
• Peni Parker
• The Punisher
• Rocket Raccoon
• Scarlet Witch
• Spider-Man
• Storm
• Star-Lord

If your favorite Marvel hero or villain isn't on that initial roster, NetEase promises a "robust" post-launch roadmap. According to the company, each seasonal drop will introduce new playable characters and maps. "Marvel Rivals is one of our most ambitious development projects," Jay Ong, head of Marvel Games, said in a press release. "Since the conceptualization of the game and throughout our collaboration, our Marvel team has poured our hearts and souls into this project, and we are thrilled to work with the incredible team at NetEase Games to help deliver the ultimate Super Hero team-based PVP shooter."

The story of Marvel Rivals features Doctor Doom and his 2099 counterpart forcing universes to collide in the Timestream Entanglement, creating new worlds. Superheroes and supervillains from the multiverse must band together and fight other groups of multiversal characters to defeat the two Dooms and save the multiverse.

NetEase Games touts its team members who worked on franchises like Battlefield and Call of Duty as being instrumental in the development of Marvel Rivals, but the studio operates with a global team of developers. Marvel Rivals is currently in development for PC, with a closed alpha kicking off in May. To sign up for the upcoming tests, you can visit MarvelRivals.com.

How does Marvel Rivals look and sound to you? Are you excited about a Marvel hero shooter? Could this fill a potential Overwatch-shaped hole in your gaming life? Does the free-to-play format affect your impression? Sound off in the comments section below!