Okay folks, been dying to talk about this since I finished digging. Saw some crazy chatter online about new Marvel Rivals characters possibly leaking through datamining. You know how much I love a good tech dive, so obviously I had to roll up my sleeves and see what was really going on backstage. This isn’t about spoilers for me, more about the thrill of the hunt, seeing the nuts and bolts early.
Setting the Stage: Hearing the Whispers
Honestly, it started like most of my deep dives. Just scrolling through the usual gaming forums yesterday morning, sipping my lukewarm coffee. Kept seeing these cryptic posts and tweets buzzing about “new models” pulled from the latest Marvel Rivals test build. People were dropping names left and right – some made sense, others sounded totally wild. You know how the rumor mill spins out of control sometimes.
Getting My Hands Dirty: The Tools Come Out
Right, so hype building, caffeine kicking in. First thing I did was grab the newest build myself. Took some time to download the hefty thing – left it running while I made lunch. Once it landed on my drive, I fired up my trusty toolkit: the programs I always use to peek inside game files. Think UModel for starters, and a couple of hex editors I’ve got bookmarked for tougher jobs. Wasn’t expecting fireworks straight away. You need patience for this stuff. Started poking around in the usual places: the cooked files, the pak folders, anywhere devs might stash hidden goodies.
Hitting Brick Walls (and Pizza)
Man, the early going was frustrating. Found piles of textures, sound bytes, all the normal background stuff. Spent hours sifting through generic environment models and effect animations. Honestly felt like chasing ghosts. Got a bit sidetracked looking at some cool Hulk textures I hadn’t noticed before. Had to order pizza – datamining hunger is real. Started thinking maybe those online rumors were just folks getting excited over nothing, or misreading old files. Almost packed it in.
The Breakthrough: Finding the Goldmine
Perseverance pays off, folks. After dinner, switched tactics. Instead of looking for complete characters, started hunting for specific file references – anything mentioning names I’d seen buzzing around online. Combing through text dumps and asset lists feels like reading ancient scrolls sometimes. Then, boom! Stumbled into a newer data directory tucked away, files dated super recent. This had the smell of the unreleased stuff. That’s when the adrenaline hit. Started unpacking files slower now, methodically. Didn’t want to trip over myself.
Seeing is Believing: The Characters Revealed
Alright, here’s the meat of it. Found actual character model skeletons and partial rigs. Not everything is textured or finished, mind you. Some are clearly still in the oven. But the silhouettes, the core shapes? Crystal clear. Here’s what seems legitimately hidden in this build, based on the structures I could see:
- Storm: Unmistakable flowing elements and a distinct cape setup. Looks powerful.
- Ghost Rider: The classic bike outline and that chain animation rig – chills! Very work-in-progress textures though.
- Vision: That density core in the chest model gave it away instantly. Phasing animation placeholder was present.
- She-Hulk: Way different build from Hulk, slimmer muscle structure model. Found a file named ‘Jennifer’ – pretty much seals it.
- Ant-Man (Scott Lang): Small rig, literally! Found scaling tech data attached. Feels unique to him.
Also found placeholder slots and tags for Venom and Nova, but way less actual model data than the others. Maybe later?
Wrapping Up the Dig
Called it a night around midnight, pretty fried but buzzing. Saved the key file snippets locally for reference. It’s important to remember this is all super unfinished tech stuff. Devs tweak everything constantly before launch. Seeing these models just gives a glimpse of what the devs are thinking about, what’s being actively worked on. Didn’t see anything crazy like playable MODOK or Squirrel Girl – sorry folks! The real lesson? Never underestimate the power of some cold pizza, stubbornness, and knowing where to look.
