NetEase made it official today, and the leak only told half the story. Marvel Rivals Season 9: The Mystery of Thebes was revealed with a story trailer, a character reveal, and a 24-minute Dev Vision ahead of the season’s launch this Friday, July 10.
As we reported, Jubilee leaked as a Strategist alongside The Hood as a Vanguard. The Strategist call was dead on. What nobody saw coming is what NetEase did with her story.
Jubilee Is Confirmed As A Strategist, And She’s A Vampire
The official reveal confirms Jubilee as a Strategist, shaping “bursts of pyrotechnic plasma” into radiant projectiles. Then comes the twist: per NetEase, “combined with her vampiric powers, every firework she releases is an invigorating celebration on the battlefield.”
That’s not flavor text. This is Curse of the Mutants Jubilee, the 2010 arc that turned her into a vampire, and NetEase is canonizing it with her Midnight Mutant costume, cited to X-Men (2010) #3 with the tagline “I want to drink deep. I want to taste life.”
Her kit includes a Vampiric Field ability, and she arrives day one on July 10 as the game’s 52nd playable character.
Apocalypse’s Horseman Of Famine
Per NetEase, the Timestream Entanglement trapped Jubilee’s son Shogo in his dragon form, and a desperate Jubilee sought out Apocalypse in Thebes to save him. The price: she became his Horseman of Famine.
She isn’t riding alone. Wolverine’s Bloodless Berserker costume brings his Horseman of Death era to the game, cited to Astonishing X-Men (1999) #1.
And then Apocalypse dies. The battle pass description states that “as Apocalypse fell, inexplicable deaths emerged with no culprit found,” while the season synopsis casts a “single mother” piecing together “what was left behind” across “newly uncovered murder mysteries.” That single mother is Jubilee, and Season 9 is a detective story with En Sabah Nur as the victim.
The Blade Team-Up: Vampiric Kin
Jubilee’s launch team-up is Vampiric Kin with Blade, which enhances her Vampiric Field to continuously heal all allies standing inside it.
That lands exactly where our leak coverage pointed: an aggressive support built on zone control rather than Mantis-style sustain.
So Where’s The Hood?
The Hood sat out the entire reveal, and NetEase’s “NEW HERO, NEW RULES, NEW RIVALS” branding was pointedly singular. Per the datamined files, that leaves him as the Season 9.5 hero roughly four weeks in, with an official kit reveal likely in early August.
One thing worth chewing on: the leaked files tied The Hood to the seasonal story as a major opponent of Apocalypse, and the official copy says Apocalypse fell with no culprit found. Until NetEase shows its hand, consider that our speculation, but a crime boss with a demon cloak makes a fine suspect in a murder mystery.
Deaths On The Nile Battle Pass, New Map, And Skins
The Season 9 battle pass is titled Deaths on the Nile, packing 10 new costumes unlocked through the Faith Harvesting Engine, with the premium track offering permanent unlocks.
Named so far: Bloodless Berserker Wolverine, Midnight Mutant Jubilee, and Raider Prime Rogue, the Alchemax clone introduced in the game’s Season 8 story.
The Dev Vision Vol. 19 breakdown also confirms a brand-new map arriving alongside Jubilee.
Marvel Rivals Season 9 Release Date And Downtime
Season 9 launches July 10 UTC, with maintenance beginning at 9 AM UTC and expected to run roughly two hours. Servers will be offline for the duration.
The update also rewrites the game’s core rules with Regenerative Shields, a rebuilt Team-Up system, and a Vanguard Deadpool. We break down the full Season 9 balance overhaul here.
With X-Men ’97 Season 2’s Rise of Apocalypse airing weekly on Disney+, Marvel now has Apocalypse burning on two fronts this summer, and NetEase just made its half a murder mystery.
