Marvel Rivals Season 9.5 Unleashes The Hood, New Lore, and Major Optimizations

Marvel Rivals has launched Season 9.5, introducing a new hero, significant lore expansions, a revamped store experience, and crucial performance optimizations. The update, which went live on August 7th, 2026, also includes a new seasonal event and Twitch Drops.

New Hero and Lore

The most anticipated addition is The Hood, bringing his unique blend of dark magic and street smarts to the roster. Players can delve into his backstory with the new "Carved in Stone" lore. Additionally, Moon Knight receives new narrative content with "Faces of the Moon" lore.

Store Updates and New Content

The in-game store introduces a new PYO (Pick Your Own) Bundle format. This allows players to select specific costumes and Emote Emojis, with the price automatically adjusting. This adaptive pricing maintains parity with previous standard bundles for equivalent content. This week's new store items include:

• The Hood - Sinful Blackout Bundle
• Iron Fist - Furious Flow Bundle
• Moon Knight - Fist of Khonshu Bundle
• The Hood - Oblivion's Whisper
• Furious Flow - Emoji Bundle
• The Hood - Emoji Bundle
• Iron Fist - Furious Flow Chroma Blackened Rage/Cobalt Cruiser and Ultimate Ability VFX
• The Hood Accessory - Madrecita Plush

Seasonal Event: Creed of Akabba

Players can participate in the Creed of Akabba event by completing missions to earn The Punisher's Sandstorm Soldier costume for FREE. Premium rewards are also available for purchase with Units.

Times Square Screening and Twitch Drops

Times Square will host a special screening of highlights from Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Watching for two continuous minutes unlocks an exclusive Spray. This event runs from August 7th to August 27th, 2026, with Avengers: Age of Ultron clips alternating hourly. New Twitch Drops are also available from August 7th to September 4th, 2026, featuring the Elsa Bloodstone - Will of Galacta costume and related bundle content.

Fixes and Optimizations

Season 9.5 brings crucial technical improvements across all platforms:

• Optimized texture resource compression, significantly reducing the game's hard drive footprint: PC by ~30%, Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 by ~20%, and PlayStation 4 by ~7%.

Several hero-specific bugs have been addressed:

• Peni Parker: Fixed an incorrect KO icon display with Cyber-Web Cluster after Team-Up with Black Panther.
• Rocket Raccoon: Resolved an issue where Repair Mode charges abnormally refilled after using Planet X Pals Team-Up.
• Cloak & Dagger: Fixed an issue where they were still affected by Emma Frost's Ultimate Ability after using Frozen Haven Team-Up.
• Namor: Corrected Monstro Spawns incorrectly detecting Rocket Raccoon's Vitality Acorns.
• Cloak & Dagger: Fixed an occasional inability to use Terror Cape when selecting The Hood Team Up.

Map-specific fixes include:

• Angela: Resolved an issue on Thebes where Angela could get stuck after passing through a corridor.
• Times Square: Corrected a bug where Team-Up statuses were improperly removed after exiting a team in a party state.

These updates aim to enhance the overall player experience, both through new content and improved game stability.