It's been a day of reveals for Marvel Rivals: Two new heroes, battle pass changes, baffling layoffs for US-based developers, and a tease for what players assume will be a future hero. Couched at the end of a trailer for Rivals' new Central Park map is a four-second shot of a snarling Blade.
Why is Marvel's resident vampire hunter so ticked off? Because he's all chained up by Dracula, robbed of his cool sunglasses and reduced to decoration on the Central Park map. Twitch streamers who played the new map and heroes today got a look at Blade for themselves—he appears to be chained up in the defending team's spawn room, forced to watch his hero friends ignore him as they return to the frontlines.
Blade's starring role on the map is interesting from a few angles. Up to now, the hero has been suspiciously absent from a season dedicated to Dracula's assault on New York City, appearing only in promotional art and surrounding story passages on the main menu. His appearance on a map brings the hunter out of the menus and into the engine—rendered, polished, but not yet playable.
This is the best evidence yet that months-old datamined findings are correct and Blade will join the Rivals roster in the coming months. Judging by his proximity to the second half of season 1, he might even be a shoo-in for season 2's hero. I still find it strange to add Blade to a season that is presumably not themed around vampires, but what do I know.
BLADE in the new map!🦇🩸 pic.twitter.com/uNl2rWxd1sFebruary 18, 2025
We'll get our own look at Blade on the Central Park map when Marvel Rivals season 1.5, as NetEase calls it, starts February 21.
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