As soon as Season 1 kicked off last Friday, Marvel Rivals players flocked to Discord with a pressing issue: their mods had stopped working. The culprit turned out to be a new game feature called asset hash checking, scanning all files to ensure they remain unaltered. Any modifications? Instantly disabled.
MerryJoyKey, the mind behind the Marvel Rivals mod manager on NexusMods, acknowledged this in a comment today. “While the chances are slim, there might be a workaround out there, and I’ll keep everyone posted if that happens.” Until then, any mod updates are on hold.
Interestingly, NetEase didn’t drop any hints about this update, and players found no mention of it in the Season 1 patch notes. The only guidance from the studio came last Wednesday when it cautioned Polygon, “Modifying game files is not recommended due to the risk of bans.”
So far, players haven’t faced any consequences, though. The game’s terms of use have always prohibited mods, threatening potential bans. But that hasn’t deterred the community one bit—thousands have eagerly shared and downloaded mods on NexusMods recently, putting Marvel Rivals neck and neck with heavyweights like Skyrim and Cyberpunk 2077 in terms of popular mods. Notably, custom skins featuring U.S. presidents had to be taken down, as they clashed with site rules against sociopolitical content.
It’s pretty standard for competitive online games to adopt a strict no-mod policy, largely due to potential exploits like altering map geometry for unfair advantages. Marvel Rivals’ mods never strayed that far and stayed mostly harmless, but it’s easy to see how things could have escalated.
Players will now need to outfit their beloved characters the traditional way and save up to buy skins in the store. It seems the days of Iron Man Vegeta and Iron Fist Goku are, unfortunately, behind us.
