The Marvel Rivals community was sent into a frenzy last week after the rumor spread that developer NetEase Games may be planting misleading information in the game’s code to catch leakers — even if there’s little evidence to suggest such a thing is actually happening.
Video games sometimes leave behind traces of in-development content as developers work tirelessly to publish updates for the public. Sleuths known as dataminers spend their time sifting through code to uncover these traces and often report them back to excited fans, with one Marvel Rivals example including references to the Fantastic Four being discovered before their official confirmation earlier this month. It started with inclusions like Blade and Ultron and quickly ballooned to the point that there are now around 20 names rumored to join the hero shooter’s roster of playable characters. As the list has grown, players have let the excitement carry them from patch to patch while they wait to see what NetEase has up its sleeve. That anticipation turned into confusion and suspicion last week.
So a bunch of the Rivals leaks are fake lol pic.twitter.com/hzlVvkkx1C
— Worm (@Saulman11835779) January 23, 2025
Alarm bells rang when Marvel Rivals Leaks Discord user and content creator KeoneSpirit shared a post suggesting that NetEase is using a few elaborate tricks to throw dataminers for a loop. In their now-viral post, they accuse the developer of setting up “fake characters to catch leakers” both in the code and “potentially” with other sources, too. With so many Marvel heroes rumored to be included post-launch, fans have now found themselves questioning if any of the leaks they’ve seen are real or “plants” part of a larger scheme. Keone attempted to clarify by sharing a lineup of characters they had “been told” were “very likely fake.”
The list includes:
- Quicksilver
- Professor X
- Cyclops
- Colossus
- Paste Pot Pete
- Jia Jing
- Gambit
- Rogue
- Nightcrawler
- Jubilee
- Beast
- Locus
- Crystal
If accurate, it would mean many hopeful X-Men inclusions and comic book deep cuts were simply rumors or maybe even planted in the code to mislead would-be leakers. Keone’s post could result in months of speculation coming to an end as thousands of excited fans regroup — or it could mean nothing at all. While Keone’s comments spread like wildfire, a few dataminers from the self-taught group at X0XLeak say they aren’t so sure NetEase is intentionally working to throw fans off its scent. They believe there’s enough evidence to suggest that the aforementioned list of heroes isn’t off the table.
“Could they be intended troll by NetEase? I guess,” X0X member and dataminer VISCERAL told IGN. “Would it make sense, in my opinion? No. The way I see it, they could have made it way easier if their goal was to troll us.”
In light of the news surrounding potential hero plants, VISCERAL published a lengthy X/Twitter thread to provide evidence that some rumored characters can be found in Marvel Rivals’ code. It’s a series of examples lined with proof that many of the characters mentioned in Keone’s Discord post are included with more than just their names but ability tables, too, and as you might have guessed, finding this information wasn’t simple.
X0X’s matfacio told IGN that, if NetEase had truly tucked away bait to trick leakers in this way, it would need to know exactly how dataminers are rummaging through the Marvel Rivals backend, explaining: “I think it would require reverse engineering a reverse engineer.”
The existence of new, hidden hero names in Marvel Rivals doesn’t totally poor cold water on the idea that the developers are attempting to mislead, but some believe the studio would have to go through a lot of trouble — likely more trouble than it’s worth — just to keep the more dedicated fans on their toes.
This is not a 100% confirmations that they are all coming or when they will come.
This is just to show off that these actually exist. 🧵All Hero tags can be found in: Marvel/Content/Marvel/Data/DataTable/MarvelHeroTable
Ability Tables are to long to fit the screenshot, will… https://t.co/9uMZsQ8xK5 pic.twitter.com/g7oCnkunha
— VISCERAL (@zvis_ceral) January 23, 2025
While rumors of NetEase’s tampering haven’t been squashed among fans, X0X has several other theories that might hold more weight. There is always the chance, for example, that NetEase didn’t actually intend to ship an update with mentions of an army of unannounced playable heroes, and that they may still be added to the game eventually. VISCERAL and matfacio also aren’t ruling out that a few heroes may have been left on the cutting room floor after a major, pre-launch development shift, such as NetEase’s rumored switch from Unreal Engine 4 to Unreal Engine 5.
“I have a new theory that every hero discovered was most likely in a ready to go state when the game was reportedly still on UE4,” matfacio adds, “then they switched to UE5 and took their time to fix several performance issues between presumably porting over characters they already made.”
X0X isn’t convinced that NetEase is toying with Marvel Rivals fans, but if the developers aren’t leading everyone on, then how did this start? Although the trail leads back to Keone’s post, fears of tampering also stem from Marvel Rivals Leaks Discord admin and popular Marvel Rivals X user @Rivals_Leaks. When new leaks were discovered suspiciously grouped together in the code earlier this month, one of their sources claimed they had no knowledge of the characters in question being included. With a reliable source’s information not matching up with dataminers’ findings, a theory was born: what if NetEase is planting fake heroes?
“I had gained info from a reliable inside source that they had once again not heard of any of these characters before they were leaked, leading to the possible theory that they were all plants along with some possible evidence,” Rivals_Leaks explained, “so I had decided to warn the Discord server about the possibility of plants and I had Keone make an announcement, which was a bit poorly worded and several people around the internet took it the wrong way.”
The post shown in that screenshot has been taken down. There is a very low chance that most of the characters are bait just for the amount of work that would have to go into faking them. For some characters there are voice line events between characters and gameplay tags related…
— Marvel Rivals – Leaks & Information (@RivalsInfo) January 23, 2025
Keone said their post spread before edits could be made, creating a snowball effect that saw many members of the Marvel Rivals community latching onto a message that was founded on a “misinterpretation.” While Keone and Rivals_Leaks had their suspicions regarding NetEase’s potential involvement in recent leaks, neither of them intended to start the chain reaction that resulted in large portions of the community accepting their theory as fact. This latest Marvel Rivals drama sent so many leak-obsessed players back to square one, but its origin boils down to one thing: a miscommunication.
“The primary assumption from the main leakers (separate from me, the ones who have most info) now is that the ‘plants’ are in fact still real. And the developers did not intend for us to find them,” Keone says. “That’s why I edited the original post and since deleted it, and have worked to help clear up confusion surrounding it.”
If you’re reading this piece to find out if Colossus or Professor X are going to be added to Marvel Rivals, I’m sorry to say there’s still no answer for that, and there probably won’t be one for a while. So far, NetEase has only confirmed The Thing and Human Torch as the next new heroes to join the fight. When they release in the coming weeks, they’ll team up with the already-released Mister Fantastic and Invisible Woman, who launched as part of Season 1 earlier this month. Season 2, which is (still) rumored to include Blade, is expected to launch sometime this April, with more updates and skins set to drop in the meantime.
NetEase has set high expectations by promising to release at least one new playable superhero every half-season, but with or without leaks, we won’t really know who’s coming until NetEase is ready to talk. At the very least, the Marvel universe is packed with memorable superpowered characters, so as long as Marvel Rivals continues to find success, there’s a good chance you’ll see your favorite face show up at some point down the line.
Even if every rumored and datamined character really is in development at NetEase, the team could scrap any of the aforementioned names for any reason at any time. Regardless of how certain you might be about the validity of a leak for any game, it might be a good idea to take some of what you hear online with a grain of salt. Keone, at least, wishes they had been a bit more cautious before sharing their findings and theories.
“A server that started small to spread information has now become a cornerstone of information across the entire community, and sometimes we can misinterpret things or make mistakes,” Keone added. “We’re a group of people working hard to find and share information, and there’s never malice behind what we post. We’ll work hard to make sure things don’t spread like wildfire again unless it’s been verified first, and are grateful for everything we’ve been able to share thus far.”
IGN has asked NetEase for comment.
Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP.
Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).
