The thirst is real: Marvel Rivals climbs Steam’s top sellers list with release of sultry swimsuit skins

Marvel Rivals is the top-selling game on Steam in the US (and number three globally) today after launching several scantily-clad swimsuit skins in its in-game shop yesterday.

New Swimsuit Special costumes for Scarlet Witch, Magik, Storm, and Black Cat launched the game to the top of Steam’s charts ahead of Counter-Strike, Helldivers 2, and the newly-released Madden NFL 27 and Hell Let Loose: Vietnam for the day following their drop.

The skins for Black Cat and Storm are direct purchases, but Scarlet Witch and Magik must be unlocked with “Pop & Win” gacha mechanics where you can theoretically get “lucky” by popping a balloon that will unlock every item in a bundle. It’s possible, but in my experience, it’s always gone down to the last balloon, and each one costs in-game currency to buy. Go figure.

Additionally, there’s an event pass where you can get bathing suit outfits for Star-Lord and Winter Soldier, so there are a lot of sources of revenue when it comes to equipping your favorite Marvel heroes like they’re out for a day at the beach instead of an intergalactic battle for the multiverse.

It’s not like you can really hide from the skins, either. Upon hitting the main menu, you’re blasted with the Swimsuit Special banner screen seen above, so there’s no secret that they’ve released.

Marvel Rivals usually stays near the top of Steam’s revenue lists, but there’s no doubt that the swimsuit skins are a tremendous draw. I’ll leave it to you to decide why that may be. But this doesn’t even factor in sales on consoles, so I can only imagine just how much money they’re making at around $15-20 per outfit.

In the end, the skins are cosmetic and serve a purpose to fund development of the game that is otherwise free-to-play, so it doesn’t bother me all that much. I don’t buy skins like I used to, but plenty of gamers out there have no issue shelling out some cash to see their main looking sweaty from the third-person perspective.

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