Galacta, Galactus’ daughter, appears to be Marvel Rivals’ narrator/announcer/host and likely the cosmic intermediary between iconic Marvel characters and the various locations and realities they’ll explore, such as Asgard or Tokyo 2099. They’ve yet to be seen, but Marvel Rivals’ main antagonists are also apparently two iterations of Doctor Doom battling each other—one from the present day and one from 2099.

These Dooms probably won’t be legitimate antagonists in a traditional sense considering Marvel Rivals is a 6v6 hero shooter with playable characters hurled at one another, and instead they and Galacta may simply be a mechanism to propel the game’s loose narrative forward. But with their addition to the story there is a glaringly obvious lack of Fantastic Four characters currently slated for Marvel Rivals’ base roster and that will hopefully be rectified when post-launch characters and content begin to drop.

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Marvel Rivals’ Galacta and Dooms Set the Stage for the Fantastic Four

Doctor Doom and Galacta being heavily involved in Marvel Rivals doesn’t necessarily mean the Fantastic Four must be involved somehow. Still, it’d be a missed opportunity seeing as how interconnected the family of four is to Doom and Galactus in the source material.

Indeed, Doom and Galactus are essentially on every shortlist ever regarding Fantastic Four villains who immediately come to mind and tying Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch, and Thing into the game’s narrative would put them right at home. Four characters all from the same intimate familial affiliation would realistically take up a sizable chunk of Marvel Rivals’ roster, but thankfully each character would have a unique ability to bring to a team composition aside from maybe Ben Grimm’s Thing.

Mr. Fantastic would innately have range on his side and could balloon and stretch his body across a wide area to defend teammates; Invisible Woman could defend teammates with force fields and cloak herself to ambush opponents; and Human Torch could be the counterpart to Marvel Rivals ’ Luna Snow with a slew of fire-related abilities in his kit.

If the Fantastic Four is Planned for Marvel Rivals It May Take a While

However, looking at the specific batch of characters cherry-picked for Marvel Rivals’ closed alpha and launch, it seems clear that NetEase wishes to postpone source material synergies and actual affiliate relationships. Iron Man has a team-up activation with Hulk, for example, but Captain America or other Avengers would’ve been easy enough for NetEase to throw in for fan service alone.

Loki appears all by his lonesome, too, when pairing him instantly with his brother Thor would’ve been a layup. This is likely an intentional strategy that Rivals has chosen in order to instigate a sense of delayed gratification.

If everyone’s favorite canonical team-ups and pairings were available at launch that wouldn’t be as exciting or lead to as much anticipation as it could generate by having a beloved character arrive somewhere down the line. Now, that’s not to say NetEase hasn’t already indulged in iconic pairings—Marvel Rivals has revealed its adorable Rocket Raccoon and Groot team-up activation, for instance, and the two being as close as they are makes them a wonderful pair already.

It will be interesting to see if Rivals makes Rocket and Groot as inseparable as they are everywhere else or if them taking up two slots on a six-person team won’t be worth the trouble, but it’s clear that when certain characters are announced in the future it’ll be neat to see if there’s a hero already on the roster who would benefit the most from their arrival. This way, Rivals could gradually release individual Fantastic Four characters until they’re all available; that said, if one Fantastic Four member is added they might all eventually need to be, so that’s an intriguing conundrum for Rivals to consider.