Marvel Snap will be getting its long-awaited PVP Battle Mode on January 31, assuming there are no “last minute issues.”
The news was revealed on Marvel Snap’s official website, and developer Second Dinner’s associate design director Kent-Erik Hagman also took to Unity Blog to further detail what players can expect.
Marvel Snap’s Battle Mode arrives as part of the Version 1.0 update, and it will see two opponents facing off against each other through multiple rounds. Both players will start with 10 health and the goal is to cut the other player’s health to 0 before they do the same to you.
Additionally, decks are locked throughout the entire battle, so it will benefit players to pay attention to what cards are played so they can know what they’ll be up against in future rounds. Another strategy is to hold a card back until a future round to surprise surprise your opponent.
Battle Mode went under multiple iterations during development, including times when the health value was different, where the Reality Stone could transform your cards before each game, and more. However, the team quickly saw that some of their earlier decisions led to games that weren’t as fun and engaging.
After all the playtests, the team honed in on a way to make games tense and still last just around 20 minutes. This time estimate is made possible by the High Stakes Rounds that “start with the stakes at two Damage, so it’s much more deadly.”
This is just the beginning of Marvel Snap’s Battle Mode, and although players can only face off against others in their same matchmaking region, global matchmaking will be on its way “a bit later.”
Assuming all goes well, January 31 will also see the arrival of Series Drop. This will see certain cards that are Series 5 (the rarest cards) drop down to Series 4, and certain cards that are Series 4 will move to Series 3. When cards drop a Series, they become “10x more common in Collector’s Reserves, and [they are] much cheaper in the Token Shop.”
These drops will happen every month, and the team will award players who acquire a Seris 5 card before it moves down with a special First Edition Badge. This feature will come later, however.
For more, check out our full wiki so you can become the best player you can and our Marvel Snap review.
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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.