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, Guangguan