Marvel Rivals’ New Fantastic Four Movie-Inspired Ability Is Being Used To Make The Thing’s Life Hell

Marvel Rivals’ newest team-up ability may look cool, but it might be causing more grief than anything else, as Human Torch players are sending their own teammates flying off the map to their death.

NetEase’s superhero shooter is celebrating the release of Marvel Studios’ Fantastic Four: First Steps in a number of different ways, like adding First Steps-inspired skins and cosmetics for each of the game’s four playable Fantastic Four heroes. It also added a new team-up ability, First Steps, for the Human Torch and The Thing that’s ripped straight from the film–Human Torch picking up Ben Grimm and flying him through the air while on fire before hurling him into the ground, damaging enemies in an area and preventing them from using mobility abilities.

Unfortunately for The Thing, the ability’s usefulness depends on the person playing Human Torch, as they are essentially the driver of the ability and in full control. That’s leading to some annoying (but admittedly funny) scenarios where Human Torch players are trolling Thing players by encouraging them to team-up and then swiftly sending them flying off the map to their death. You can see some terrible (or great) examples of that below.

Thankfully, First Steps (when used normally) is a decent team-up ability that’s great for locking down an objective or diving onto enemy players. That’s more than can be said of some team-up abilities, which run the gamut between extremely powerful and largely useless. An example of a less-than-great team-up is Hulk and Wolverine’s Fastball Special, which is similar to First Steps in that it lets Hulk pick up Logan and hurl him through the air.

Marvel Rivals Season 3 launched July 11 and added Jean Grey (aka Phoenix) to the game’s ever expanding roster, with Blade set to be added later in the season. It additionally kicked off a summer event that includes a number of swimsuit skins for characters like Luna Snow, Thor, and The Thing.

While Marvel Rivals will continue to add content based on the latest and greatest Marvel Cinematic Universe films and shows, NetEase said it won’t rely on MCU release schedules and that the game’s content plans are driven by its own universe and seasonal storylines.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps cast recently sat down to play as their characters in Marvel Rivals, and they had some thoughts about the game’s alternate costumes, including the Fantastic Four’s wedding skins and Invisible Woman’s revealing Malice skin, which star Vanessa Kirby joked would appear in the next film.