Marvel Rivals developer allegedly didn't pay some of their artists

Marvel Rivals looks like it’s going to be an excellent free-to-play shooter, but it seems like the game’s development might have been messy. One of the artists who claims to have worked with developer NetEase alleges that the company did not pay them for their work.

William wrote on Twitter that they worked for NetEase during the pandemic and claimed that developer NetEase didn’t pay them for their work. Furthermore, the artist also said that this was one of the most directionless projects they’ve had to make art for. The artist said that these devs made them change their artwork for the shooter several times, even telling them to reference fanart from ArtStation.

It is worth noting that the artist says they did this for Marvel Rivals as part of a “free art test,” regretting doing that work for free. Because of the experience, William has told younger artists not to take jobs where they don’t get paid. NetEase has yet to respond to these allegations.

All of that sounds pretty disappointing, especially since Rivals actually has a decent art style and some fun-looking costumes for the Marvel Rivals characters. Granted, the artist admits this was part of a supposedly free art test, but this could have been handled a lot better.

NetEase are known for making these free-to-play games with heavy microtransactions, working on games like Diablo Immortal. Marvel Rivals will be similar since it is a free game with select heroes being available as part of a rotation. At that point, fans should probably just pay for all the characters, just to have more options when playing.

Based on the gameplay we’ve seen, it’s clear that Overwatch is a major inspiration of the game, with all these team-ups and powers. The game does look like a lot of attention was put to it and we hope its final release makes a lot of fans happy.

Marvel Rivals will have an alpha test this May, with no Marvel Rivals release date confirmed just yet.