Marvel Rivals has some truly cursed mods, but that’s what happens when you mix weirdly detailed character models with the internet

There’s nothing more terrifying than getting jumped in the backline by an Iron Fist wearing the distorted skin of the adorable Jeff the Shark; I know this because it’s happened to me on more than one occasion.

This horrifying apparition isn’t a figure of my imagination but a mod that replaces Iron Fist with Jeff, which will apparently let you “awaken the real shark” or whatever that means. Players have been using this mod to scare the living daylights out of anyone who picks Jeff because this little shark is everyone’s favourite strategist to hate—mainly thanks to his destructive ultimate that can throw everyone off the map for an insta-kill.

Other than being unnerving to look at and a new way to disturb the enemy team strategists this mod doesn’t give Iron Fist any special perks but is purely cosmetic, like most of the other mods circling Marvel Rivals right now.

There are mods to give Spider-Man a symbiote skin, recolour Moon Knight’s base skin to black, turn Mantis into a “Goth Mommy,” and completely transform Iron Man into Vegeta. Some modders have taken things one step further and created some truly questionable things that I will not be linking here for both for my sanity and yours, but let’s just say that these creations are far from surprising.

Back in December last year, a dataminer got a hold of some of the Marvel Rivals models, including Squirrel Girl, Psylocke, and Dagger. The dataminer uploaded these models so other players could use them for their own projects, and one 3D animator who took a look seemed to be a little shocked at what they had found: “I’ve learned that these Marvel Rivals models are… more detailed than they should be.” It seems that they were referring to Squirrel Girl in particular: Enough said.

While most of these mods are just cosmetic, using mods or any unauthorised third-party software like cheats, bots, or hacks is directly against NetEase’s terms of service and can lead to your account being banned if you’re caught with them. But this kind of risk tends to be the case when it comes to modding most games. Although, as most of these mods seem to be changing characters’ skins, it’ll be interesting to see if NetEase takes a firm stance against this, as Marvel Rivals makes its money through selling cosmetics in-game, as is the case with most free-to-play games.

But for some players, these mods are worth the risk, not so they can wear the skin of Jeff but so they can actually play the game. “For me, the game is unenjoyable without the optimization and mouse accel configs, so I had to get the mods for those,” a player says. “I’m not too high a rank, and I haven’t spent money, so if I get banned, I don’t really care.”

I’ve also had a pretty poor time in Marvel Rivals, thanks to its crummy optimisation. I’ve had the clutter in maps freeze my game and players disappearing or not logging projectiles properly throughout the game. There have even been reports recently that players with bad PCs do less damage and have less mobility. So I can understand why some players would want to install some of the mods which aim to help optimisation.

But the only mod that I’d honestly risk getting banned for would probably have to be the Jarvis clip this mod. This swaps out Iron Man’s vanilla voice line that he says while ulting for “Jarvis just clip this shit” which is so funny it makes me want to main Iron Man.