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Marvel Rivals Introduces Costume Customization with New Currency
Marvel Rivals has rolled out its Season 2 update, appealing to gamers who enjoy personalizing their characters. The new costume customization feature allows players to alter the color palette of their character’s skins, enabling a fresh in-game aesthetic tailored to individual preferences. This feature introduces palette swaps to enhance visual variety within the game.
Cost and Availability of Palette Swaps
This new palette swap customization is not offered for free and is not universally available across all skins. However, the selection of customizable skins is expected to expand over time. Upon the feature’s launch, four reskinned options were made available.
To unlock costume customization, players must spend an in-game currency equivalent to $6 per skin. Once unlocked, players gain the freedom to apply any released color variations for that specific skin without further charges. New variations can be applied as they become available.
Pricing Compared to Competitors
The pricing model for these reskins appears to be comparatively reasonable when juxtaposed with Marvel Rivals’ main competitor, Overwatch 2. In Blizzard’s hero shooter, legendary palette-swapped reskins have often been priced on par with the original skins. Furthermore, unlocking black-and-gold customizations for Mythic skins can cost the equivalent of $20.
In contrast, the $6 price point for Marvel Rivals’ costume customization is a less aggressive monetization approach. However, the primary concern with this new feature is not the price itself, but rather the introduction of Unstable Molecules, a new currency that some perceive as an unnecessary addition designed to encourage increased player spending.
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Concerns Over Currency Proliferation in Marvel Rivals
Previously, players navigated three distinct in-game currencies, alongside temporary tokens for limited-time events like Galacta’s Cosmic Adventure.
Among the existing currencies, Chrono Tokens, represented by a purple icon, are most commonly used by free-to-play Marvel Rivals participants. These tokens are used to unlock battle pass rewards. Unlike experience points in other games, Chrono Tokens are a seasonal currency and expire at the end of each season.
Units and Lattice serve as the premium currencies in Marvel Rivals. Lattice, depicted as gold coins, is acquired through direct monetary transactions. Most microtransactions convert real money into Lattice at an exchange rate of approximately $1 per 100 Lattice.
Units, shown as blue currency, are required to purchase the majority of premium costume bundles within the game. To acquire costumes, players must convert Lattice into Units at a one-to-one exchange rate.
The newly implemented cosmetics system introduces a further layer of complexity with Unstable Molecules. This new currency is essential for costume customization. Similar to Units, Unstable Molecules are obtained by exchanging Lattice at a one-to-one rate.
The key distinction is that Units are used for purchasing entire costumes, emotes, sprays, and account name modifications, while Unstable Molecules are specifically designated for purchasing the costume customization feature for already owned skins.
The decision to incorporate an additional currency without apparent justification unnecessarily complicates Marvel Rivals’ microtransaction system, which was already considered somewhat convoluted. This complexity may be intentional, as employing multiple virtual currencies can obfuscate the actual financial expenditure players are making on in-game cosmetics.
The addition of Unstable Molecules is viewed by some as a potentially unfavorable practice for consumers. While the pricing for costume customization is competitive in comparison to similar cosmetic alterations offered by other games, the new feature could have been implemented using existing Units. Critics argue that introducing another currency to Marvel Rivals is unnecessary, unless the underlying motive is to further obscure costs and potentially inflate player spending.
Accessing Costume Customization in Marvel Rivals
Players can now access palette-swapped variations of select Marvel Rivals costumes. Costume customization is currently live in Marvel Rivals, albeit for a limited selection of skins. The initial skins compatible with this new feature include:
- Magik Punkchild: Rosy Resilience skin variant
- Psylocke Vengeance: Phantom Purple skin variant
- Luna Snow Mirae 2099: Plasma Pulse skin variant
- Winter Soldier Blood Soldier: Winter’s Wrath skin variant
Each costume customization option is priced at 600 Unstable Molecules. These customizations can be found within each costume’s listing in the in-game store. Players must possess the base skin before they can purchase the associated costume customization color variants.
Currently, Unstable Molecules are exclusively obtained through a one-to-one exchange with the premium currency, Lattice. However, an announcement on the official Marvel Rivals Discord server indicated that new methods for acquiring Unstable Molecules will be introduced in Season 3.