When superhero shoot-’em-up Marvel Rivals launched, it quickly became one of the most successful free-to-play games on Steam. But the real superpower team-up is between players joining the game’s growing Discord community.

Developed by NetEase, Marvel Rivals has seen its fan community on Discord explode to over 3 millions players. So much more than a chat app, Discord has millions of users around the globe – many of whom are gamers – and is now a key hub for gaming brands looking to connect with players.

The success of Marvel Rivals gives game developers and gaming brands a chance to learn valuable lessons. By looking at successful games, game studios and esports brands – and brands in any vertical – can take advantage of useful insights to reverse engineer an actionable, scalable strategy that boosts player engagement and retention.

What is Marvel Rivals?

Available for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S, the anime-style game is built around iconic Marvel characters like Iron Man, Doctor Doom, Black Panther and the Hulk. It’s a free-to-play player-vs-player third-person-shooter, with various team and deathmatch modes. Since launching in December 2024, new content is added in seasons including new playable characters like the Fantastic Four. 

It’s been enormously successful as a live service game, pulling off the difficult and unusual feat of hanging on to players after a big launch. Marvel Rivals also stands out because of its community: with over 3.6 million members by January 2025, the Discord server has overtaken the hugely popular Genshin Impact server to become the biggest Discord gaming community (and reportedly the biggest server on the platform, second only to the all-conquering Midjourney).

Strategies fueling Discord growth

Platform Integration

A major driver of this growth is that the game is effectively integrated with social platforms like Twitch and Discord. Links to both platforms are included alongside social media links on the game’s Steam home page.

Seamlessly linking the game with the community has a massive impact on engagement. Remove any friction between the game and the spaces where players like to hang out, and you make your game part of one big gaming ecosystem that collapses barriers between playing and socialising. 

Incentivised engagement

Smart developers go a step beyond integration. Players are encouraged to get involved with the community when they see they can gain rewards in return for community participation. So not only is it easy for fans to link the game to Discord or Twitch, but players benefit from doing so. 

Rewards can take the form of in-game benefits such as currency or profile enhancements. And you can offer rewards in the community itself, such as Discord XP, roles or other perks. Twitch Drops events in Marvel Rivals, for example, reward players with costumes and nameplates for watching 30 minutes, 1 hour or 4 hours of a Twitch stream.

Incentives like these are the gift that keeps on giving for both players and developers. Rewards drive user acquisition as new members sign up, and also boost long-term engagement as members stick around to gain more perks.

Event-based and collaborative experiences

Once players join a Discord server, they join a self-sustaining conversation discussing the game and sharing strategies. Crucially, community managers can pro-actively keep members engaged by prompting conversations and holding community events.

Marvel Rivals took advantage of Discord’s Quests feature to hold an in-game event that ties together with the community. Quests are a form of advertising within Discord that encourage players to watch video or play a game in return for rewards. In this case, players of Marvel Rivals Season 1 Discord quest earned a reward for playing the game for 15 minutes or more while Discord was open.

Community and collaborative events can be time-limited in-game events, launching new content, missions, characters and features. Events are fantastic for engagement because community managers can build engagement before, during and after the actual event: pre-event promo builds buzz, the event itself gets players involved, and then afterwards players share their results and show off their earned rewards.

Gaming brands can supercharge their events by deploying smart tools such as Levellr’s scheduled posting and automated notifications. Tools like this add an extra layer to Discord’s own features and help you streamline workflows to be more time-efficient, as well as giving you the information to respond to what’s going on in the event in real time. 

Community design and UX

One of the most important things to get right when launching a server is to make sure it’s easy to use. User experience (UX) is the art of structuring a server for ease of access and engagement, and Marvel Rivals is a great example. 

Good UX begins as soon as players sign up, with a straightforward onboarding experience (which also gathers useful information for the community’s managers). Simplified channel layout helps members see what’s going on in the community and take part in the things they want to be part of, without getting overwhelmed by irrelevant information. And members should be shown clear community guidelines that are easy to understand.

Data analytics and key metrics

Adopting new strategies is one thing, but it’s just as important to monitor the results. Community managers must track and measure growth and engagement to see which strategies are working and demonstrate value to stakeholders. The team behind Marvel Rivals will be monitoring key metrics like server growth, engagement rate and participation rate to make sure the community continues to thrive.

Metrics like these show how many new members join and how much members are joining in with the conversation. To fully understand these KPIs, you need real time data analytics. Levellr’s data dashboards are full of granular, in-depth real time information that show ROI and quickly gather insights which inform ongoing strategy.

Lessons for game developers

These are the short-term and long-term strategies that game developers can deploy to boost their community:

Integrate platforms linking Discord and game features.

Incentivise server participation with tangible rewards.

Organise events that promote user collaboration and retention.

Invest in strong UX and onboarding for Discord servers.

Anyone can learn lessons from successful communities like Marvel Rivals. At Levellr, we help you go to the next level, so you can drive tangible marketing value and monetisation results by inviting, engaging and rewarding fans. Levellr’s AI-driven platform helps community managers and executives turn fragmented community conversations into actionable insights, enabling teams to identify trends, track sentiment, and make data-backed decisions faster.

Contact Levellr today to discover how you can learn lessons from the most successful communities and benefit from invaluable advice from our expert community managers. We can help you streamline your workflow and optimise your processes to focus your time where it matters: fostering fan engagement, driving ROI and strengthening player loyalty.