Last week, Kabam launched the widely popular Marvel Contest of Champions on PC via Steam for the very first time. To celebrate the release, Final Weapon had the opportunity to speak with Charles Busch, Senior Producer at Kabam. In our exclusive interview, we dive into the team’s approach to balancing, how characters are implemented in the game, and even what content lies ahead in 2025.
Why should PC players be excited for Marvel Contest of Champions, and what do you hope they take away from it?
Charles Busch: I think the Contest is in a niche of its own – a Rhythm-based Fighting game with deep RPG interactions. It’s much easier to pick up then a lot of other Fighting games, but there’s an incredible amount of RPG depth that makes it a bit like a Puzzle game – for example, what Champion do I have that counters the challenges of this particular fight? With over 300 Marvel Champions to choose from, there’s a ton of characters to collect and master. If any of that sounds interesting to you, I definitely recommend you give this game a try.
Was there a specific character that the team found surprisingly difficult to adapt from comics to the style of Marvel Contest of Champions?
Charles Busch: I think a character that was an interesting technical challenge was Spider-Punk. We wanted to match the iconic style that was introduced for him by Into the Spiderverse by incorporating those varying, graphic flat cut-outs and iconic shaders into his moveset. It was quite the undertaking to pull this off, but I think the results were amazing.
Are there any characters the team wanted to adapt from the comics, but either haven’t had a chance to or weren’t able to?
Charles Busch: One of the great things about working with Marvel is they have so many amazing characters to choose from. We have a spreadsheet a few hundred lines long of all the characters we are considering for future releases. We haven’t pulled the trigger on certain characters though for technical reasons. As an example, pulling off true shapeshifters like Mystique is challenging because of the performance impact of loading in so many different character models.
How does the team approach balancing with so many different characters?
Charles Busch: From the start of the design phase, we always try to establish very clear goals. For example, how much damage, survivability, etc. should this Champion have. Also, who should they counter or be countered by? We’ve also been working on more reworks to bring older Champions up to modern standards. Qualitative and quantitative data are also important as we continue to validate. Qualitative data through numerous playtests to see how it feels as a player, and quantitative by comparing statistics against similarly rated Champions. This is followed by any needed balance updates.
How do you approach making each character feel unique and fun to control, especially when bringing it to PC?
Charles Busch: When we are designing a Champion, one of the first things we think about is how should they feel to play, what’s the fantasy we’re trying to capture? Are they a big brawler punching in doors? A skilled martial artist with pin-point accuracy? A scheming villain carefully orchestrating your downfall? Etc. From there, we build out what we think the gameplay loop could look like, what are the rotations and skill asks we are asking from the player? We also do concept art on what we think those Special Attack moments could look like based on their lore, powers, and most iconic moments. We get that prototyped in software and then validate and iterate through playtesting. There was some work getting the controls feeling good on PC, but now that it’s there, the experience transfers pretty seamlessly.
What can fans look forward to in the next year of Marvel Contest of Champions?
Charles Busch: We’re taking some really big swings – new game modes, new features, new MCU tie-ins. I can’t divulge too much too soon, but this is genuinely one of the most exciting roadmaps we’ve had, and I can’t wait for players to see what we have been cooking.
Marvel Contest of Champions is available now for iOS, Android, and PC via Steam.
