Just as Season 1 kicked off on Friday, members of the Marvel Rivals Discord began noticing something peculiar – their mods suddenly wouldn’t work. It turns out that the game has introduced a new system called asset hash checking, scanning its files to see if they’ve been altered. Any file that doesn’t pass the check is simply blocked from functioning.
In response to this, MerryJoyKey, who created the Marvel Rivals mod manager on NexusMods, commented, “There’s a slim chance that a workaround might be found, and I’ll keep everyone updated if that happens.” For now, they’ve put a hold on any updates to the mod until a solution can be discovered.
Interestingly, NetEase never informed players about this change, and it wasn’t mentioned in the season 1 patch notes. When queried about it, the studio had only said to Polygon on Wednesday, “Modifying game files is not something we recommend, as it risks leading to a ban.”
So far, nobody has reported being penalized. According to the game’s terms of use, mods have always been off-limits, with the possibility of getting banned for using them. Nevertheless, players have continued to use them, with thousands sharing and downloading mods on NexusMods recently. This activity even rivaled popular games like Skyrim and Cyberpunk 2077, as Marvel Rivals shot up among the top modded games of the month. However, mods featuring skins of U.S. Presidents Trump, Biden, and Obama were removed from the site due to its policy against mods “relating to sociopolitical issues in the United States.”
It’s common for competitive online multiplayer games to crack down on mods. Some modifications can alter the game mechanics in ways that provide players with an unfair edge, such as by removing obstacles on a map. While the Marvel Rivals mods didn’t quite cross this line and were mostly pretty harmless, there was always the potential for things to escalate.
Now, players will need to buckle down and earn their way to new skins through the in-game store, signaling the end of the line for unique creations like Iron Man Vegeta and Iron Fist Goku.
