Marvel Rivals players have found a workaround for mods, but it involves potentially frying your PC and sacrificing your framerates
When Marvel Rivals Season 1 launched last week, a whole host of updates came with it. There were new heroes and some much-needed nerfs and buffs, but there was also something else that went unmentioned in the patch notes: asset hash checking. This prevented client-side mods from working in Marvel Rivals.
NetEase considers modding a no-go. Despite a whole host of mods being available for players to use and download, it is a bannable offense alongside botting or cheating as it also uses unauthorised third-party software. So it was only a matter of time before NetEase got wise to all the Marvel Rivals mods available on Nexus Mods. But it turns out there is a way to bring your favourite mods back if you're willing to put everything on the line.
Instead of just putting your files into a mod manager and loading them into Marvel Rivals, now you need direct access to the game's .pak files. One player has even put together a helpful tutorial in case you need some guidance with this (via Dexerto). Some people may use this to just mod Luffy into the game as Mister Fantastic or so they can wear Jeff's skin when playing Iron Fist, but those aren't the only reasons to use mods.
A few players found that using mods to help with optimisation was a game-changer. While Marvel Rivals has improved a lot since its launch, it's still a little patchy in some areas. I've experienced some annoying FPS drops, enemy players randomly turning invisible, and cluttered maps breaking my games. One mod for performance-boosting fixed stuttering and helped your game look cleaner at lower resolutions. Unfortunately, while that may have worked to help game performance before NetEase effectively disabled mods, it will probably only make things worse now.
Another way to get around the modding ban is with another mod that effectively lets files be read as pre-unpacked. However, one of the side effects of using this is that the process could hurt your SSD and make your performance even worse in Marvel Rivals. The mod even recommends that you only use this for audio files—character models could really mess up your PC.
There's also a risk of getting banned by NetEase if you end up using mods. While it doesn't seem like NetEase has dished out any permabans to players using mods so far, the devs have warned against using any, just in case. "It is not recommended to modify any game files, as doing so carries the risk of getting banned," NetEase said in a statement to IGN.
Right now, I honestly don't think modding is worth the risk of borking your PC or getting banned. While it's a shame that a ton of creative mods have now been rendered obsolete, this was really only a matter of time and was an expected next step for NetEase to take. It also seems like Marvel Rivals' performance is getting better with every update, and there are plenty of skins already in the game for players to pick from and dress up with. While that does rule out Luffy or Goku from appearing in your Marvel Rivals games, that's probably not the worst outcome possible.