Marvel Rivals Season 9.5 Shrinks File Size, Adds The Hood and Swimsuits

Marvel Rivals is adding the supernatural villain The Hood as a playable character this Friday as part of its Season 9.5 update, the studio confirmed. It is a mid-season drop designed to test both your hard drive space and your willingness to watch costumed vigilantes hit the beach.

The update introduces the "Summer Festival Vol. 2" event, according to the studio, which delivers a fresh batch of swimsuit skins for the game's cast. But the real heavy lifting is happening under the hood. The patch features internal performance optimizations that result in a smaller overall client file size on disk.

In an era where modern games routinely demand the storage capacity of a small server farm, a patch that leaves you with more hard drive space than before is a pleasant anomaly. Usually, adding a brand-new character and a wardrobe of beachwear means sacrificing another indie game to the storage gods, but this time the digital footprint is actually shrinking.

The details

• New character: The Hood (playable)
• Seasonal event: Summer Festival Vol. 2 (swimsuit skins)
• Storage impact: Smaller overall file size on disk via internal optimizations
• Release date: This Friday

Your SSD can finally take a breath, even if the rest of the cast is busy squeezing into spandex beachwear.