Video Game / Marvel Contest of Champions

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The game is a standard Mascot Fighter game that has several different modes, including a Story Mode, Duel (where players fight another player's top Champion) Arena and Alliance Modes, with special events frequently taking place. Each player's champions can be leveled up by using ISO-8, gold and catalysts, which are all gained when fighting in story quests and special events.

The game also has a comic tie-in set in the mainstream Marvel Universe that expands on several characters introduced in the game, such as Guillotine and White Fox.

In December of 2020, a sequel game, Marvel: Realm of Champions, was released, a 3-VS-3 MOBA-lite that details the original Champions’ self-founded civilizations struggling to fill the power vacuum left by the assassination of Maestro.

This game contains examples of:

• Adaptation Dye-Job: Claire Voyant has green eyes instead of the black irises of the comic books.
• Alternate Self:
  • Black-Suit Spider-Man is from a world where the symbiote completely took over its host, and is more sinister and brutal than Classic Spider-Man.
  • Black-Suit Spider-Man, Agent Venom, classic Venom, and Venompool are all bonded to alternate versions of the Venom symbiote.
  • Venom and Anti-Venom are both variations of Eddie Brock.
  • Several versions of characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe show up.
  • King Groot and Civil Warrior mix this with Original Generation, being alternate versions of Groot and Steve Rogers created specifically for the game.
• Ambiguously Brown: Electro is noticeably darker-skinned than Caucasian characters but not as dark as explicitly black characters like Storm and Luke Cage, presumably referencing how he was played by a black actor in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 but is a white guy in the original comics. Averted by Guillotine, who's explicitly described as half-French and half-Algerian.
• An Ice Person: Iceman, of course. The Vision(Aarkus) technically has this power too, but in this game he's mostly using cold air rather than solid ice. The Serpent can freeze opponents as well.
• Animal Motifs
  • Spiders for the Black Widows, the Spider-Men, Spider-Woman, Spider-Ham, Venom and most of its spawn, Silk, Spider-Gwen, Spider-Punk and Peni Parker
  • Ants for the Ant-Men and Cassie Lang
  • Wasps for the Wasp, Shathra and Yellowjacket
  • Birds for the Vulture, Hawkeye, the Falcons, Phoenixs and Dark Phoenix
  • Octopi for Doctor Octopus
  • Toads for Toad
  • Rhinos for Rhino
  • Cats for Black Panther, Kraven the Hunter, Sabretooth, Kitty Pride, Kill-Monger, Black Cat and White Tiger
  • Wolverines for the various versions of Wolverine
  • Scorpions for Scorpion
  • Dragons for Dragon Man, Shang-Chi, both versions of Iron-Fist, and Moondragon
  • Sables for Silver Sable
  • Mantises for Mantis
  • Snakes for the Red Skull and the Serpent
• Anti Poop-Socking: Quest energy depletes as the player moves through the level and replenishes over time, though players in an Alliance can ask for help and certain items can regenerate part of all of it. Likewise champions used in Arenas must cool down and can also be recharged with Alliance help or for 5 units.
• Artificial Stupidity: CPU controlled enemies will noticeably not use their special attacks even if the bar is full when close to death, when that's the first thing a human opponent would do. The level of this seems to vary depending on the game mode, as Duels play out much closer to what fighting an actual human would be like (and are thus much harder).
• Assist Character: During Groot's third special attack Rocket Raccoon (who is a character in his own right) appears out of thin air and fires his gun from Groot's shoulder at the enemy.
• Badbutt: Especially compared to her appearance in Jessica Jones (2015), Jessica's dialog when she talks to the Summoner in the Contamination event is noticeably toned down, presumably to abide by the game's T rating even though the show she's from is definitely not family friendly. The same applies to Luke Cage and the live action version of Daredevil.
• Beast Men: Howard the Duck, Spider-Ham, Sauron, Werewolf By Night, Rocket Racoon, Rintrah and Hit-Monkey are animals that walk like humans, Werewolf actually being a transformed human
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Deadpool, as usual, comments on aspects of the game when encountered in story mode. He also complains during the 2015 Holiday special about being classed as a Mutant, which causes The Collector to tell him to shut up. And his "Deadpoolpalooza" event is pretty much nothing but this.
• Character Class System
  • There are six classes for the playable characters: Cosmic, Tech, Mutant, Skill, Science, and Mystic.
  • There is also the Combined class, though this is limited to only to non playable characters. Playable who could easily have more than one class typically just have different variations split among the class options. Comic book Thor Odinson is cosmic, MCU Thor Odinson is skill, while Thor Jane Foster is mystic
• Combat Tentacles: Doctor Octopus and Omega Red have tentacles by default, while Venom can create them
• Composite Character: Hela has her origins from the 616 comic books, but her motivations from the cinematic universe.
• Dishing Out Dirt: Sandman, Terrax, and Dust make use of silicate matter in their attacks. Quake has power over the ground too and Apocalypse uses sand in his third special attack
• Fish out of Temporal Water: Captain America and Kushala are from the past, while Bishop and Cable are from the future
• Freemium: Real money can be used to purchase units, and daily specials (often containing a class specific crystal and several catalysts) are offered for around $4.99. It's not strictly necessary to purchase but do help on higher difficulties.
• Funny Background Event: Present in several stages.
  • The New York City stage has a sign for Nelson & Murdock visible on a building. The Avengers Tower can also be seen in the background.
  • The Spaceport stage has moving holographic wanted posters of Rocket and Groot. It also features of an advertisement of The Collector (depicted in Super-Deformed style) hawking items for the game.
• G-Rated Drug: The Black ISO-8 in the Contamination event (tied in with Jessica Jones (2015)) is treated this way, with characters referring to it and craving it the same way one would become addicted to a drug.
• Kinda Busy Here: Deadpool's third special attack has his cellphone ring in the middle of the fight and he goes to answer it, while his opponent makes exasperated gestures and looks away while he yammers away on it, only to have Deadpool to shake his head, hang up and offhandedly shoot his opponent.
• Hammerspace: Used by champions who have weapons as part of special attacks but not normally visible on their model.
  • Winter Soldier and Punisher pull out two handguns and a bazooka for their third special (which inexplicably changes into a rifle when the camera cuts back after showing the shot hitting the opponent, though this was eventually fixed in an update so it's always a rifle).
  • Rocket Raccoon beats them both in his third special attack by first pulling out a handgun, which makes his opponent laugh at him, so instead he pulls out different components of a blaster that when assembled is larger than he is.
  • Notably averted with Drax: originally, he would pull knives out of nowhere for a special attack, but an update changed his character model so that he is always using them.
• Healing Factor: Quite a few characters have some varation of regeneration, but The Hulks, the Wolverines, Sabretooth, Blade, Man-Thing, Groot and the Deadpools are the ones who make use of them in game play.
• Hellfire: Mephisto, Ghost Rider, Cosmic Ghost Rider and Kushala all have hell fire attacks. Black Widow(Claire Voyant) also can inflict the incinerate status with her curse of hell fire.
• Hitbox Dissonance: Rocket Raccoon has the same size hitbox as all other champions, so as not to give him an unfair advantage due to his relative smallness. This is also why he always floats using his jetpack and only gets down on the ground for his second special attack or his win pose so he's the same height as the other champions.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: A recurring complaint from the game's community is that some defenders in the online competitive context are way too overtuned, and they sometimes fall into this category. The most infamous case is Serpent, who without an adequate counter—and one that's generally specific to him—is almost impossible to face due to possessing a variety of abilities that bypass many common game mechanics, immortality, and being an absolutely brutal aggressor who has an ability that allows him to advance and not be pushed back.
• Hostile Show Takeover
  • Around the time Avengers: Age of Ultron was released Ultron took over the contest, with The Collector repeatedly grousing about this and referring to him as a "parasite".
  • Also Played for Laughs with the tie in to Deadpool, which has Deadpool making his own series of quests titled "Deadpoolpalooza" but with blatant copying such as taping his face over the graphics for the story quests and the "Deadpooloids" being regular Symbioids with his mask and boxers with his logo on them.
• Intangible Man: Many forms of this among the cast, but the variations of the Android Vision, Kitty Pride, Ghost, Photon and Viv Vision are the ones who make use of it in game play
• Immune to Flinching: The "Unstoppable" ability of Juggernaut and Unstoppable Colossus allows them to not be knocked back as long as it is active. Serpent has a similar ability
• Intercontinuity Crossover: Mostly between the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Marvel Comics 616, although other comic book settings like 2099 and Marvel adaptations like X-Men: The Animated Series are also involved.
• Little Bit Beastly: Mole Man, Toad, Tigra, Morbius and Squirrell Girl have some visibly non human animal traits
• Loads and Loads of Loading: Planning to gun your way through a chapter in the campaign? Hope you've packed enough patience for a ton of loading screens. For each opponent you face in a chapter, you'll have to go through at least three loading screens: one to bring up character selection, another for the actual fight, and a third to take you back to the map once you win (and more if the character you picked gets KO'd). Do the math and you'll be looking at having to go through over a dozen loading screens to finish up the chapter - but unfortunately for those who are aiming for 100% Completion, that's just the beginning - virtually every chapter has multiple unique routes that have to be cleared to be fully "explored". That means that you'll have to get through dozens upon dozens of loading screens, not to mention two additional loading screens that you must go past to exit and re-enter the chapter map between each unique route cleared, which will be more than enough to rile up anyone who's short on patience.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: The Captain Americas, with the exception of the Infinity War Steve Rogers, heavily incorporate shields into their play style, as does Red Guardian, although his shield is inferior.
• Magnetism Manipulation: Magneto and Photon specialize in manipulating the electromagnetic spectrum. Onslaught can use some of Magneto's attacks as well.
• Man of Kryptonite: Due to the need to counteract certain specific attributes, some characters can fall into this category, such as Human Torch, who is a counter to all characters in the mystic class; Magneto, who dominates all fights against characters with metal in their composition and reverses the class advantage against robots, with the exception of robots specifically designed to destroy mutants, such as Nimrod; Archangel, who can reduce the accuracy rate of abilities from characters who are not immune to poisoning and bleeding; Doctor Doom, who nullifies all characters heavily reliant on buffs and converts the nullified buffs into power bars, and can trap characters in endless cycles of specials upon their obvious conclusion.
• Meet Your Early-Installment Weirdness: The game has Marvel Cinematic Universe characters meeting their comic book counterparts, and has Marvel Universe comic book characters meeting their predecessors from the The Golden Age of Comic Books in the cases of Russian spy Black Widow and android Vision meeting demonic Black Widow and smoke dimension alien Vision.
• Mirror Match: Referenced by champions in Story Mode when they mention that they may end up fighting themselves. The colors of the champions do not change, unlike in most Mirror Matches, but because the camera is fixed the side of the screen they're on and how they face during special attacks stays the same.
• Rubber Man: Mister Fantastic, most of the symbiotes and Kamala Khan can stretch their limbs
• Moveset Clone: Common among champions of the same class, for instance Winter Soldier and Punisher both have identical movesets and special moves. Both versions of the android Vision, Deadpool and Captain America also use the same movesets since the characters are just Palette Swaps of each other. Eventually averted with Iron Fist, who at first used a standard Skill attack set but after an update gained unique animations (and lost the gloves on his model).
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Doctor Octopus, Omega Red and Spiral use more than two arms in combat
• Mythology Gag:
  • Anti-Venom's "Time Travellers" synergy with Spider-Man 2099 and Doctor Octopus is a reference to Spider-Man: Edge of Time.
  • White Tiger's "Ultimate Teammates" synergy is a reference to Ultimate Spider-Man (2012)
• No Flow in CGI: Mostly averted by the cape physics of many Champions, and while the hair on certain characters like Captain Marvel and Storm's mohawks used to be stiff as a board and prone to clipping, later updates added jiggle bones to it so it moves more naturally.
• Normally, I Would Be Dead Now: The Punisher has a special ability called Defy Pain that gives him a change to endure an otherwise lethal blow for several seconds, the exact length determined by his level.
• No-Sell: Bleed damage does not affect most Tech champions (i.e. Vision, Ultron, or others who are robots) or certain other heroes like Colossus with his metal skin and Luke Cage with his Super-Toughness. Robots are also immune to Poison damage.
• One-Man Army: Some characters, due to an extremely powerful interaction with the game's mechanics, can bypass numerous nodes, perfectly control the majority of fights, and complete entire maps of the game with extreme ease, including the bosses.
  • Hercules, because of his immortality, an extremely lethal amount of damage, and abilities like unblockable attacks and mechanics that allows him to bypass characters' ability to auto-block attacks and become intangible, is one of the most sustainable and potent attackers in the game.
  • Equally sustainable, Absorbing Man. But unlike Hercules, what makes him special is a convoy of immunities and extremely high resistances, and a regeneration capacity that allows him to get through several fights without the aid of potions.
  • Kate Bishop, unlike the other two, is perfectly human, but the combination of abilities that allow her to evade and stun, bypass evasion and intangibility, control the activation of other characters' debuffs, deal an extremely high amount of damage, and almost never be touched when in the hands of a skilled player, makes her one of the most absolutely powerful additions in the game's history.
• One-Steve Limit: Some characters have the same given name and Code Name, like Scarlet Witch Wanda Maximoff and Scarlet Witch Wanda Maximoff(MCU and Comic Books). Others have the same given name like Punisher Frank Castle and Cosmic Ghost Rider Frank Castle. Some have the same code name but are differently named otherwise like Ant-Man Scott Lang and Ant-Man Zayn Asghar.
• Only One Female Mold: While the male heroes have several different body types (including "Beast" like Hulk, Juggernaut and Abomination, "Heroic" like Captain America, Black Panther and Electro, and "Slim" like Spider-Man) all the females have the exact same body type and Painted-On Pants style clothing. Eventually averted in the update that added Spider-Gwen, who has a noticeably smaller and thinner frame than the other female characters, and Kamala Khan, who's shorter and less curvy than most of the other females. She-Hulk is also much taller and muscular than other female models and has a different winpose than the standard.
• Original Generation:
  • Guillotine is a wholly original character created for this game and its tie-in comic.
  • Downplayed with King Groot and Civil Warrior, who are based on canon characters, but are alternate versions not based on any specific incarnations from the comics or films. King Groot is a Groot who never met Rocket and rose up to become a Galactic Conqueror, and Civil Warrior is a Steve Rogers who became The Atoner after his Accidental Murder of Tony Stark.
  • Venom the Duck is a version of Howard the Duck using the Venom symbiote as a Lovecraftian Mini-Mecha, created by the Symbiote Supreme.
  • The Symbiote Supreme is a Spawn-esque version of Dr. Strange bonded to a powerful symbiote, channelling the power of the dark gods Chthon, Set, and Null.
• Palette Swap: Several champions are obvious palette swaps for each other, often an alternate version of the same character. For instance, X-Force Deadpool has the exact same power set as regular Deadpool with a different colored uniform, and WWII Captain America is this for regular Captain America. The Vision also has both a comics version of his costume and one based on the movie version in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Ms. Marvel and Captain Marvel also have the exact same attributes.
• Plant Person: Groot is a plant alien whose species is the result of the Gardener's experiments, while Man-Thing is a Muck Monster made of various swamp plants and protists coming together.
• Playing with Fire: The Human Torch's specialty, though fire is also one of Heimdalls domains. Man-Thing's signature special move is fire based as well. Sunpot's powers are ultraviolet radiation, but one of his special moves has him using it to create lava.
• Poisonous Person: Abomination's ability Irradiate has a chance to inflict poison on his opponent. Golden Age Black Widow's curse of plauge causes poison as well. And of course Scorpion can sting.
• Power Creep, Power Seep
  • It is possible to for power houses in the source material like Namor to lose to those who are less so like Captain America even in unarmed fist fights. Those with no powers at all like Yelena Belova can fight evenly galactic threats like Gamora.
  • Characters who would be enhanced in the source material are no better than their baseline variations, such that regular Spider-Man can fight his symbiote suit, stealh suit and supreme variants on equal footing.
  • Sentinel and Vox are mooks in the source material, but have basically an equal chance against named sentinals and in-humans like Bastion and Medusa in this game.
  • Hela and Black Widow (Claire Voyant) should be able to kill most of the unarmored characters and many of the armored ones with just a poke of a toe or finger. Any contact with Man-Thing should similarly be hazardous to most of the cast. Black Widow's special attack is a mere finger poke after hanging the target upside down.
  • Professor X is a medic, a combat medic, but one who should struggle against the more skilled and hardened fighters in the game, crumpled against most with with super huma physicalities or fantastical gear. At the same time, few should have any defense against his telepathy, so in most cases he should have been able to escape from anyone with hostile intentions.
  • Magneto should be having a field day with all the metal available to him
• The Power of Friendship: Having heroes who are friends, allies or lovers on the same team will often grand them boosts and bonuses to certain abilities. On the flipside, pairing up rivals or enemies will have similar effects.
• Power Floats: Magneto (both versions) and Doctor Strange both float by default. Magneto always did while Doctor Strange had this added in an update. Rocket Raccoon floats too, but he's just using a jetpack.
• Power of the Storm: The Thors, Beta Ray Bill and Storm, naturally, make use of violent weather in their special attacks
• Psychic Powers: Many characters technically have them, but Professor X, Jean Grey, Phoenix, Dark Phoenix, Mister Sinister, Moondragon, Emma Frost, Cable, Stryfe and Onslaught are the ones making use of them in this game.
• Reliably Unreliable Guns: Star Lord's third special attack has him kick back his opponent then level his gun at them, only for it to fizzle and spark when he pulls the trigger. He then frantically starts hitting it and finally manages to get a shot off just as the opponent rushes at him again.
• Religious Bruiser: Kamala Kahn and Dust are both Muslim women, and this is referenced in Dust's Synergy Bonus "Connected Faith" when paired with Kamala. It makes Dust's next special attack passively unlockable after using a Sandstorm special attack, and Kamala's Attack Rating increases when her Poison immunity activates.
• Shock and Awe: Both versions of Thor Odinson, Electro, Storm, Spider-Woman, Jane Foster Thor, Beta Ray Bill and Spider-Man(Miles Morales) make use of electrical attacks
• Sizeshifter: The Ant-Men, the Wasp, Apocalypse, Yellowjacket, Cassie Lang and Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan) to a lesser extent, can all change size in battle
• Space Police: Nova is from a space police force. Vision(Aarkus) is technically an interdemsional police officer, but he has once imprisoned a criminal on Jupiter.
• Special Attack: Each champion can have up to three, with the 3 star or higher champions having access to the highest immediately while lower starred players need to unlock them by leveling up.
• Spotlight-Stealing Crossover: There's more variations of Deadpool than anyone else in this game, including several made just for this game. The game also makes up a few versions of Hulk/Maestro, while bringing in many variations of Bruce Banner and some other Hulks from the comic books. Drawing strictly from the source material, Spider-Man has the most variations, with Iron Man not far behind, reflecting on how much harder the characters have been pushed in the 2000s-2020s(Spider-Man was always popular but the 1990s made Marve a little iffy on cloning him again until Spider-Verse). To show how far Marvel's former poster boy fell off in the 2000s through 2020s, there are "only" three variations of James Howlet/Logan, plus the X-23 Wolverine. There's three Steve Rogers plus two Sam Wilsons for Captain America, three Carol Danverse plus another the Kamala Khan Ms. Marvel, though Monica Rambeau goes by Photon, two Natasha Romanova's plus two other women who have been Black Widow, and three Jean Greys. Venom and its spawn are liberally distributed through the roster as well.
• Stealth Pun: During Rocket & Groot's Holiday Special the first level has The Collector refer to Groot as a tree, and the first map is laid out like a Christmas tree. What makes this stealth is one has to zoom out on the map in order to see its shape. And by extension the entire quest can be seen as a hunt for a Christmas tree, since one of the prizes for completing it is a 3 Star Groot.
• Super Hero Packing Heat: Bishop, both versions of the Punisher, Cable, Star Lord, Rocket Racoon, Deadpool, Winter Soldier and Agent Venom are heroes who shoot guns at criminals, monsters and super villains
• Super Mode: Agent Venom's Signature Ability, Klyntar Rage, has him randomly lose control of the Venom symbiote after being attacked once he hits 50% health, greatly increasing his damage output.
• Super-Speed: An incredibly common trait among the fighters, but Quicksliver, Northstar and Photon are the ones who make the most use of it in game play(despite none of them being the fastest in the source material)
• Super-Strength: An extremely common roster trait, but the Thing, the Hulks, the Thors, Rhino, both Abominations, both versions of Colossus, the Champion of the Universe, the Juggernaut, Destroyer, Hercules, Man-Thing, Mangog, Thanos, Titania, Apocalypse, Nimrod and Beta Ray Bill are the ones who make the most use of it
• Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: Cosmic beats tech beats mutant beat skill beats science beats mystric beats cosmic.
• Use Your Head: A default forward attack for several "brute" types champions including The Hulk, Abomination, Drax and Luke Cage.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Apocalypse, Venom and Hulkling can do this in game play, more can do so outside of it
• Wham Shot: The fourth anniversary trailer ends with the Silver Surfer creating an energy trail... in the shape of a four.
• Wolverine Publicity: Captain Marvel, Groot and the Trope Namer Wolverine feature most prominently in the marketing despite not being the most significant characters in the game. They're not insignificant, however.
• X Slash: Wolverine's Special 3 ends with him launching his opponent into the air, jumping toward them, and slashing across them with both claws at once.