Announced today, Marvel Snap looks like a chaotic but fun digital trading card game (TCG) featuring popular Marvel heroes and villains. It’s also the next game from some of the key folks behind Blizzard’s popular digital card game Hearthstone, who left to form their own studio a few years back. So if you get some Hearthstone vibes from it, that’s why.
First teased yesterday and then fully unveiled today, Marvel Snap is an upcoming free-to-play card game developed by Second Dinner. In new videos and trailers released for the game today, the devs working on Snap explained that the digital card game will focus on the fun parts of TCGs. What does that mean? Well, in Marvel Snap matches only last a few minutes, decks are small, and there are no turns as everyone plays at the same time.
Second Dinner is a new company founded in 2018 by former Hearthstone director Ben Brode and former executive producer Hamilton Chu. In 2019, the duo and their new studio received $30 million from Chinese tech company NetEase and announced a deal with Marvel. Now we know the end result: Marvel Snap. This new card game is being published by NuVerse, a company owned by TikTok parent company ByteDance.
Considering the folks behind this new TCG, it shouldn’t be surprising to see how similar it looks to Hearthstone. But while it shares some visuals with Blizzard’s uber-popular card game, Marvel Snap seems to be a faster game. Players build 15-card decks and take on opponents in a race to collect Cosmic Cubes. At any point, if a player thinks they’re going to win, they can “snap” and double their rewards. According to Brode and Second Dinner, matches will only last about three minutes, which does make this a perfect card game—if you’re one of those people who brings their phone into the bathroom—to play on the toilet.
Marvel Snap has no announced release date, though it can’t be too far away as the devs are already taking sign-ups for a closed beta on Android devices. When it does release, it will be available on iOS, Android, and PC. According to the devs, the game will launch with over 150 cards, and all cards will be earnable via free methods.
As someone who enjoys Marvel Cinematic Universe films and mobile card games, Snap looks great. I guess we can add Snap to that ever-growing list of upcoming Marvel-themed video games. There sure are a lot, huh? At least a lot of them look cool.
