Rogue has always been one of my favorite X-Men thanks to the X-Men Evolution animated series and the Fox movies I grew up with (justice for Anna Paquin!), and I was curious how Marvel Rivals would balance a hero with unlimited possibilities for a competitive game. Now that we’ve finally seen her in action, it’s clear NetEase just made her a comic-accurate powerhouse, and fans are terrified of the power-siphoning hero’s abilities.
For those not steeped in X-Men knowledge, Rogue is a mutant with the ability to absorb people’s memories, personality, and powers at the slightest touch. Typically, this exchange causes a great deal of pain for the affected person, and Rogue can even kill someone through skin-to-skin contact if she hangs on long enough. Marvel Rivals is implementing this into her kit, as she is able to absorb an ability from nearly every other character in the game. This lets her change her playstyle on the fly; she might take Doctor Strange’s shield to raise team-wide defenses, for instance, or copy Invisible Woman’s crowd-controlling bubbles to move enemies around.
Anyone playing Rogue has to be adaptable, as she can only copy abilities from enemies on the field, rather than just pulling from the roster at her whim. She’s not too dissimilar to Echo from Overwatch 2, whose ultimate lets her copy an enemy or ally’s form and kit, but Rogue still maintains her own cooldowns and abilities when she siphons an ability. Even without taking an ability from one of her foes, Rogue is a powerhouse of a tank. Her primary attacks are pretty straightforward, as she punches, kicks, and tosses around enemies like they’re nothing. She also has a block move that minimizes damage as she absorbs all that energy for a more powerful punch.
Rogue looks great for leading the front line and controlling a crowd, and that all comes together in her Ultimate, which creates an area-of-effect that siphons health, ult charge, and some other properties from heroes in her proximity. This gives her a ton of survivability and drains resources from enemies, some of which seems to be based on what enemy classes are in your field. Early footage shows her absorbing what looks to be base health from other Vanguards. The ult charge absorb is the real boon here, as that can undermine some of your opponents’ plays before they even get a chance to fire off their game-changing abilities. As you can expect, fans are both excited to play as this powerhouse and also scared to see her coming out of the enemy spawn.
All that said, some fans think she might have a weakness when she drops on December 12. Based on the footage we’ve seen of her thus far, it seems like heroes that don’t technically have superpowers may be safe from her ability siphon. Punisher fights with firearms, and doesn’t seem to have the icon that shows Rogue can steal a power from him. So maybe Rogue’s counter is actually just regular guys who shoot at superheroes, like Hawkeye and Black Widow. We’ll know for sure when she launches on Friday.