Marvel Rivals’ costume customisation may look cool, but it adds yet another unnecessary step while tacking on even more money to expensive skins

Marvel Rivals’ latest update brings a couple of helpful fixes, some new skins, and the ability to customise the colour of every current hero costume in the game. Costume Colours have arrived right in time for the Hellfire Gala, and it’s such a cool idea I can’t believe I hadn’t thought about something like this before.

Now, players will get the base colours for their chosen skins, but they will be able to customise them to fit their aesthetic. Although this is only currently available for a certain few skins, including Luna Snow’s Mirae 2099 skin, Magik’s Punkchild skin, Bucky’s Blood Soldier skin, and Psylocke’s Vengeance skin. But I’m sure more costumes will get this option as the seasons progress.

But before you can customise your outfits, you’ll need to purchase the new colour options. These will cost 600 unstable molecules, a brand new currency made for colour customisations. It’s the equivalent of 600 Lattice or $6 / £5.34.

I don’t see the need for yet another currency in Marvel Rivals. With the addition of unstable molecules, which is a mouthful anyway, there are now four different kinds of cash in Marvel Rivals: Lattice (the gold currency which you can purchase), Chrono Tokens (which is used for the Battle Pass), units (which you use to buy skins), and now unstable molecules.

The only benefit I see from having so many different kinds of currencies in Marvel Rivals is having the ability to confuse players just enough that they spend more money than they understand. There’s just enough distance between purchasing Lattice and buying in-game items with the other currencies that spending could be quite hard to keep track of, especially if you can earn Chrono Tokens and Lattice through the battle pass or challenges every now and then.

“Costume token, lattice, chrono tokens, units, unstable molecules,” mentions a fan on Reddit. “This is wayyy too many currencies to keep track of lmao.” While another player points out that this move is kind of on-brand: “I’m not surprised, it’s very mobile-gamey of them. Here’s to hoping it’s not a grind.”

But most players seem to be focusing more on the new customisable colours than the currency, which I totally understand. Seeing the new recolours, loads of people are talking about how Magik kinda looks like Hatsune Miku (or Hatsune Magiku) or how Bucky now resembles a Belmont with his brown hair and vampire-hunting attire: “Bucky even has holy water strapped to his leg,” one player notices.

Although a couple of players do point out how making players pay more for a better version of an already expensive skin is kind of scummy. “My very first thought was that they conveniently add a paid-for recolour to a colour scheme that is MUCH better than purple and pink,” one player says. The Luna Snow skin in question is already 2,200 units ($22 / £19.58), and spending an extra $6 on it to make it look better feels like an unnecessary extra step.

While these recolour options are really cool and a great idea to add a personal touch to costumes, I’ll probably steer clear of them for now. With how expensive the base skins are, plus the recolour fee, and how confusing and annoying a new currency is, it just doesn’t seem worth the effort right now, but hopefully it’ll change for the better going forward.