Looking good is a critical part of any Hero Shooter and Marvel Rivals is nailing it with its wicked and clean visual style and super well-designed roster of skins and costumes. Even though each Hero only has a handful of available outfits at launch, they all look incredible, whether they’re recolours, MCU-inspired outfits, or throwbacks to classic comic looks. However, identifying skins in Marvel Rivals can be a bit complicated. Not only are there three distinct rarities of costumes in Rivals, but there are also different categories of skins which determine their overall price and availability. If you’ve ever wondered why some of the skins or skin bundles cost way more than others, you’re in luck as we’re here to explain it all.
Here are all the differences between the different skin and costume types and rarities in Marvel Rivals.
If you’re looking for more Rivals content, you can find our open beta guide on how to play the hyper-aggressive Vanguard Thor here on KeenGamer.
Costume Rarities
Marvel Rivals Skin Classifications
Firstly, let’s start by examining the different skin classifications in Marvel Rivals. Skin category is different from skin rarity, with the category deciding what the main theme or idea behind a skin actually is. You can find an up-to-date list of all the Skins in Marvel Rivals here.
According to IGN’s interview with Marvel Rivals lead narrative designer Jinghua, there are five distinct categories of skins:
- Seasonal Story Skins: Unique costumes tied to the Marvel Rivals storyline. Examples include the Imperial Protocol line of skins for Captain America, Hawkeye, and Mantis.
- Comic Classics: Skins which represent and reimagine some of the most iconic outfits and looks from Marvel’s seasoned history. Examples include Master of the Sun Star-Lord, Superior Iron Man, Master of Magnetism Magneto, and Bast’s Chosen Black Panther.
- MCU Inspired Skins: Outfits ripped straight from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Examples include Love and Thunder Thor, Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 Groot, Arctic Agent Black Widow, and Wolverine’s Deadpool & Wolverine skin.
- Popular Themes: Skins based on a central theme or idea such as “Western retro steampunk”. Examples include the 1872 Rocket Racoon and Iron Man skins.
- Festive Skins: Themed holiday outfits. Some events and seasonal stories will give these skins out for free.
Every single skin in the game comes under one of these categories and, in some cases, the category will even influence the price or availability of said skin. MCU costumes, for example, cost more money across the board than any other type of skin, with Legendary MCU-Inspired Skins being the most expensive thing currently available in Marvel Rivals at over 2600 Units.
Seasonal Skins
Marvel Rivals Skin Rarities Explained
Rare Skins
Represented by a blue triangle, Rare Skins are the simplest kind of skin to understand in Marvel Rivals. Similar to how Rare Skins work in Overwatch, these are simply recolours of the Hero’s base design and all the Heroes in Season 0 have at least one Rare Skin.
Venom is arguably the best example of how Rare Skins look seeing as how he has two Rare Skins available at the moment: there’s the Anti-Venom Rare Costume, which has Venom don the negative colour scheme of his 2099 counterpart, as well as the Marvel x Capcom inspired Cyan Clash Rare Costume which players got for participating in the Open Beta. Both of these skins give Venom a drastically different colour scheme without changing the way his base design looks.
With some notable exceptions, all the Rare Skins in Marvel Rivals can be bought for 600 Units. These skins won’t appear in the Store, though, meaning that you’ll need to purchase them directly from each hero’s Cosmetics page. The only skins you won’t be able to buy directly are the Rare Skins as they are tied to the Heroic Journey Achievements. For those, you need to earn Achievement points, which also award 100 Units for every 40 points. When you reach 200 Achievement points, you’ll earn the Ivory Breeze Storm Costume, whereas you’ll get the Jovial Star Star Lord Costume when you reach 400 Achievement points.
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- Rares are Recolours
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- Rare Skins Cost 600 Units
Epic Skins
The second, and most common, type of skin in Marvel Rivals is the Epic tier Skin. A purple diamond represents these skins and they are typically very transformative skins, featuring new designs which completely alter the look of the chosen Hero. If you want to compare them to Overwatch, Epic costumes in Rivals can be likened to Legendary skins from that game.
Most of the costumes in both the Store and the Battle Pass will be Epic-tier outfits. For example, in the Season 0 Battle Pass, three of the five available outfits – Galatic Claw Black Panther, God of Magic Doctor Strange, and Empress of the Cosmos Hela – are of Epic rarity, with the remaining two skins being one Rare and one Legendary.
Epic Skins Alter the Hero’s Base Design
When it comes to how much Epic Skins cost in Rivals, there’s some variance depending on where the skin originates.
Skins that fall under the Seasonal Story, Comic Classics, or Popular Theme categories will all cost 1400 Units on their own, or 1600 Units in an Epic Quality Bundle. Meanwhile, MCU-inspired skins will cost a little bit extra at 1600 Units per individual skin and 1800 Units per Epic Quality Bundle.
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- Normal Epic Bundle
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- MCU Epic Bundle
Legendary Skins
The final category of skin in Marvel Rivals is the Legendary Skin. So far, there are only five Legendary tier skins in Marvel Rivals: Green Scar Hulk, No Way Home Spider-Man, Avengers: Endgame Iron Man, Love and Thunder Thor, and Galatic Wings Mantis. Except for Mantis’ skin, all of the other Legendary Skins come from the store and cost significantly more than their Epic counterparts, costing 2000 Units per Skin compared to the 1400 Units for Epic Skins. Furthermore, certain Legendaries, such as the Iron Man and Spider-Man skins, are locked to specific bundles and you cannot purchase them standalone.
The main reason Legendary Skins are so different from Rare and Epic Skins (and why they’re so much more expensive) is that they either change character animations or add additional effects, such as new audio. Sometimes, these changes can be very minor – disappointingly so in the case of Endgame Iron Man – or very noticeable.
On the animation side, wearing the No Way Home skin for Spider-Man will change the animation of the Ultimate, causing Peter to sprout the iconic Iron Spider arms from his back for the duration of the attack. Meanwhile, the only noticeable change for the Endgame Iron Man costume appears to be a new set of floating metal bits during his Armor Overdrive ability.
Legendary Bundle
In terms of skins with new audio, Love and Thunder, the new Thor Legendary Skin, adds a set of new sound effects whenever Thor uses one of his Thorforce abilities: each time he charges up a Storm Surge or a Hammer Throw, it’ll be accompanied by one of two electric guitar jingles. The most obvious example comes with his Ultimate, which plays an extended guitar solo. Similarly, whenever Green Scar Hulk activates his Ultimate to turn into Monster Hulk, he’ll be accompanied by a chorus of gladiatorial cheers as well as the ringing of a bell when he uses World Breaker to finish off an opponent. However, the fact that Hulk technically has three different models may also factor into his skins being higher priced.
Another example that most players will be able to experience first-hand is the new Legendary Mantis Skin from the Season 0 Battle Pass. When Mantis wears the Galatic Wings costume, a drum-lead Wakandan anthem will play during her Ultimate. The song lasts for the entire duration of Mantis’ Ultimate and is very noticeable.
Whether these changes are enough to justify the price hike is on a per-person basis. However, based on the variance of these additional effects – ranging from Iron Man’s lacklustre showing to Thor’s total transformation – I’d suggest that you look up videos of Legendary Skins and their accompanying special qualities before committing to a purchase.
Legendary Skins Offer Unique Effects
Those were all the differences between Skins in Marvel Rivals.
