Marvel Zombies is a Special Event during Season 4.5 from 10/23/25 to 11/13/25. This Event features a unique Event Game Mode, called Zombie Mode, being the first-ever PvE mode in Marvel Rivals.

Launch date: Scheduled for October 24th, 2025





Complete voyage missions to receive the Blade - Blade Knight costume for FREE! The event also contains exclusive rewards, including Peni Parker - Floral Frights Costume!

Event Period: 10/23/25, 09: 00 :00 to 11/14/25, 09: 00 :00

Up to four players fight against hordes of zombies and try to defeat The Queen of the Dead. Play as Thor, The Punisher, Magik, Blade, and Jeff the Land Shark with some modified and new abilities.


There are five playable heroes in Marvel Zombies mode. Duplicate heroes can be used.




The Punisher, Magik, Thor, Blade, and Jeff the Land Shark are the 5 heroes you can chose to play.

Every single one of these heroes is viable for beating Zombies on Nightmare IV. Don't feel you need to stick to the "strongest" hero to have success in this fun PvE mode.

With that said, The Punisher seems to be the strongest and easiest hero to beat max difficulty, but Blade is a close 2nd. Punisher's damage is insane, and compared to Blade, his range makes it easy to sit back and farm zombie hordes and the two bosses from a safe distance.

Once you get his fully upgraded Rifle, the DPS is so crazy that using his ult is a massive nerf. As you progress through the waves, you'll notice that weapon and ult buffs are separate. Depending on your hero and build, Ults won't get much use in the later rounds for anything other than health refill.

In early game, he'll likely be behind his team in damage stats, but in the final location he becomes so OP, expect him to take MVP.








Everything you can see on the "Prepare" screen is permanent progress. You'll need to rank up to level 25 before you have access upgrading all Traits and Abilities.

The good news is that level progress is shared across all heroes, so you are feel to switch between them and not have to start entirely over.

The Trait upgrades are individual, however, making the quickest method of maxing your stats sticking to one hero.

Ranking up is pretty fast as long as you are winning most of your runs. You should also check the Challenges, as the rewards will greatly increase your progress rate.

• Be sure to go back to the "Prepare" screen between matches to rank up traits before queuing you're next round!

Blade


Stick to his Sword, and invest everything into its damage and your life steal.

Hero Traits and Abilities should be his Red Trait tree and chose every Ability with life steal so you never die.

For Blessings, prioritize attack speed and damage, sword range for AoE, then start grabbing Moon Knight's Ankhs. Lighting and freeze will also be helpful.

Avoid ult upgrades, and your life steal is so busted you don't need a lot of max HP.



Jeff The Land Shark


In the Prepare menu, select Hydro Grenade, Vitality Bubble, and either It's Jeff! or Hazardous Depths.

All traits go Blue. Same for Blessings. Just pick everything blue with his Fin icon and you're set to have the ultimate Hide and Seek build!

Collision damage is the main priority as the combat loop is ramming into everyone. Stay submerged, and reel in these adorable wins.



The Punisher


Build into Adjudication (Assault Rifle) and not Deliverance (Shotgun). You're going to unlock a wide spread anyway so his shotgun feels pretty pointless.

Hero Traits and Abilities should be his Red Trait tree and stick to the Green Abilities. Don't sit in the turret, always use the deployable Turret.

Snare Beacon is "monkey bombs" and decoy grenades from COD Zombies. Anytime you're team is getting overwhelmed, send the Zombies away from you with the Zipline. Great for Punisher because he wants to play keep away all game.

For Blessings, invest in everything that boosts Assault Rifle damage, with life steal and reload speed as secondary choices.

Smartlocking is the best Blessing in the final battle against Wanda because it turns his spread into a beam and you end up melting with headshots.



Magik


Magik needs to chose between a build where she is permanently Dark Child, and one where she can never use Dark Child. Both are relatively equal, but don't fall for the trap of trying to invest into both modes.

We suggest going for Mortal Will that locks you out of using Dark Child. Then, go for the Red Blessing to get Phantom Edge. Dark Child has more difficulty against the final boss, but has better AoE for standard zombies.

Next invest into attack speed and damage, and go for the demon sword bonus. Her Dash Ability upgrades are quite good, but seeing as Magik's specialty is dealing with the hordes, try out the piercing Dash to maximize your AoE damage with each use.



Thor


Thor has one build everyone is loving for how fun and powerful it is. You're going to build into maximizing his Awakening Rune state.

When building for Thor, select everything Blue on both Traits and Blessings. Once you get his legendary Blues, Endstorm and Rune Recycle together, it's game over for the zombies.

• Rotten Undead: Standard zombies, scratch and bite, come in large groups
• Berserk Undead: Faster, agressive, leap at hereos
• Explosive Undead: Throw explosive grenades which detonate on impact
• Plague Undead: Throw poison bombs that create erosion zones on impact, inflicting continuous damage to heroes inside
• Decayed Undead: Crawls, swings arms for attacks, inflicting slow
• Exploding Undead: Explodes on death for AoE damage
• Undead Sentinel: Shields and charges, stomps for AoE damage, swings a heavy hammer even when approaching



• Zombie Namor
• Starts invulnerable and flying while summoning Monstros, including specialized types (Frozen, Gamma, Undead). Defeat the summoned Monstros to damage Namor
• Throws triple spears, creating water zones and summoning Monstros when players are hit
• Creates large water zones that erupt, knocking players back and summoning Monstros
• Summons Aura Monstro, a larger Monstro that gives buffs: increased damage, healing, berserk, freezes, or gamma
• Traps a hero in a bubble, slowly rising and dealing damage. Bubble can be broken from the inside or outside
• At low HP, Namor teleports to the center of the map and blows his horn to summon Gigantos. No other abilities are used at this stage. Gigantos spawn Monstros and Aura Monstros

• Queen of the Dead
• Fires piercing chaos waves
• Draws in all nearby targets
• Targets a hero with a sustained tracking barrage
• Launches homing projectiles at all heroes, creating control zones on impact
• Enters a void state, moving freely
• At mid HP, teleports randomly, periodically releases shockwaves, and spawns control zones under heroes
• Gains shield; break it to stun her and clear control zones
• At critical HP, teleports to map center for a long Ultimate Ability channel. Red crystals spawn nearby; destroy them to delay her cast. Defeat her before the can use the ability to win.

Namor


Namor has 2 phases. During the first phase he is invulnerable. Focus on taking out his squids as quickly as possible.

During his second phase, switch your attention to Namor himself. When he flies out of melee range, have melee teammates focus the squids, while those with range keep on Namor.



Wanda


Wanda 3 has phases. Between each one she'll become stunned and you can get in a ton of free damage.

Melee Heroes like Blade and Magik have a hard time against Wanda 2nd and 3rd phase because she'll cover herself in Dark Seals that will repeatedly stun you. If you're not careful, you'll get CC stacked and will likely die.


Notice under Wanda's main HP bar, she has a bar that constantly fills and depletes. She fills it up by damaging you, and it depletes as she takes damage.

If her bar fills and you don't kill her in time before she detonates her final ult, everyone will die and its game over.

Have everyone unload damage, and shoot the crystals that float around her, and you should be able to get the clear.

Marvel Zombies: Midtown

• Normal
• Hard
• Extreme
• Nightmare I-IV



Normal, Hard, and Extreme feature linear progression through stages of the map. Nightmare I-IV are long battles in a fixed arena.

When you first start out, you can only play Normal difficulty. You'll need to complete each level before you can que for the next one.
Normal difficulty is designed to be nearly impossible to lose, so if you haven't started, use your first game to experiment with playstyle and Blessings.
When you get into Extreme and Nightmare, you're build really starts to matter. If you just select random upgrades, it's going to be a struggle to get the dub.

All missions were available for the full duration of the event. Holy Ankhs🔘 can be used to revive yourself when the whole team has been defeated. Lanterns 🎃 are used in the Voyage to Astonish Event.

Pre-Match
1-4 players join and choose a hero (duplicates allowed). Players spend their starting Moon Power 🔮 on Khonshu's Blessings and prepare for the first wave.

Waves
Hordes of zombies pursue and attack all surviving players. Defeat all enemies in a wave and complete any special wave missions to move on and earn more Moon Power 🔮.

Preparation
Before the next wave, players have some time to spend their Moon Power 🔮 on Khonshu's Blessings. A rally point appears, and when all players gather there, the next wave starts early. If the time runs out, any stragglers are teleported to the rally point and the next wave begins.

Victory and Defeat
Slay all zombies and defeat the Queen of the Dead in the final wave to fin. If playing solo, death means defeat. With more than 1 player, fallen players will be revived after 10 seconds, but if everyone is down, the match is over. During the defeat sequence, players can use a Holy Ankh🔘 to revive themselves.

This mode features rogue-like progression, where with each run, players can get temporary and permanent upgrades/abilities for their Heroes.

In-Match Progression

Khonshu's Blessings

Khonshu's Blessings are stackable upgrades that persist during the current run only, purchasable between waves. In addition to General Blessings, each Hero has personal blessings for their respective abilities. Each Blessing has multiple tiers that each have a chance to appear during each Blessing refresh.

The five playable heroes each have two Trait lines with corresponding Blessing types, each fitted to a specific play style, weapon, or ability. Those can be distinguished by their colors: Red, or Blue.

Each Trait has three tiers; by purchasing Khonshu's Blessings each run, those Traits can be upgraded with various boons ranging from speed, power, range, or unique gameplay mechanics. To raise a Trait up by a tier, the player must gather a specific amount of Blessing XP. Each Blessing contributes to the XP count, with each rarity granting different XP numbers.

• Default (Grey) Blessings grant +1XP
• Rare (Blue) Blessings grant +3XP
• Epic (Purple) Blessings grant +5XP
• Legendary (Gold) Blessings grant +10XP

Each Tier can be raised with:

• 20XP
• 60XP
• 120XP




Between every wave, you'll be lead to a glowing circle. The game gives you less than a minute to go in and spend points. Don't stockpile your cash. Instead buy everything you can afford, and remember it's worth it to Refresh rather than waste points on Blessings you don't need.

Do not waste 15 coins on a random Perk. Again, the best builds are very focused and narrow, not wide. You'd be better off spending 10 refreshes to get the Blessing you're looking for, than risking it on RNG.

All the best builds in Rivals Zombies are heavily invested into a single aspect of your heroes kit. Don't try to make a well-rounded hero, because you'll just end up being super weak at everything.
Damage is king, don't spend too many tokens on HP and damage reduction. As the waves become more difficult, you're offensive power and life steal will carry you.



After spending 20/60/120 points into one color, your Ability will gain a unique perk. These are incredibly strong, and are vital to power scaling in the later rounds.

Leveling

This event features a separate Leveling System. Increase your event level by playing and earn experience whether you win or lose. A higher event level grants Trait Points and unlocks new Abilities. These are unlocked equally among all Heroes, not just the Hero that was played.

Abilities

New abilities unlock at different levels and can be swapped for different effects.

Traits

Spend Trait Points to boost different attributes of each hero for unique bonuses. Trait Points can be reset at anytime at no cost so players can try out different builds.

Difficulty Unlocks

Players start at Normal difficulty and unlock harder difficulties once they defeat their hardest currently unlocked difficulty.