Second Dinner revealed a new development roadmap for Marvel Snap on Saturday. There's quite a bit to unpack about what to expect with the new roadmap (and what not to). We'll help you make sense of the timeline and read between the lines on some of the more vague aspects.
First, let's look at the new roadmap side-by-side with the previous one.
Coming Soon
The first thing that pops out is the disappearance of Character Mastery. The roadmap news release said this:
“But, quick reminder: plans change all the time – sometimes we realize very late that a feature isn’t going to work out. You might notice Character Mastery is missing from this roadmap and that’s exactly what happened here: we discovered some feature-blocking technical architecture issues.”
It appears that Character Mastery was nearly ready to launch, but they ran into some technical hurdles. Believe it or not, this actually happens pretty often in game development. Sometimes, games will design an entire mode and scrap it for technical reasons or simply because it's not fun enough. With most companies, you never hear about it beforehand, though. Nevertheless, it's disappointing that Character Mastery is not coming. I think it would be a vital tool to keep people buying variants of their favorite characters. I know for me, I'll go back to my philosophy from before Character Mastery was teased: just try to get one cool variant for each character. There's very little incentive to get more than that. The primary reward that was set to be included with Character Mastery is a set of Reacts. Those are most likely being moved over to character-specific albums, starting with America Chavez in July and Deadpool and Wolverine albums in August. I find albums too prescriptive, so don't consider them a worthwhile replacement for the Character Mastery. The disappearance of anything related to Ultimate variants (special VFX & audio) is also a loss.
Instead of Character Mastery, the new item in the Coming Soon category is a new game mode, Deadpool's Diner. It appears to be a new high-stakes mode where you can Snap far beyond the normal 8-cube limit (or, in this mode, Bubs instead). Each game will have up to five Snaps! You're going to be able to win or lose massive amounts of Bubs at a time. The final reward in Deadpool's Diner is a new card, Cassandra Nova.
I have seen some speculation that, given the massive number of Bubs required to reach the top (500 million), this might be a collective community goal like the one that distributed the Storm Ultimate variant. I don't believe this to be the case for several reasons. First, the rewards prior are a new type of Collectible Borders called Distressed Borders. Consumable cosmetics feel far more like an individual reward than a collective one. Second, anyone who knows how quickly doubling down can get out of control will realize you can build up to huge amounts in a short time. You will be able to add the Cassandra Nova variant seen in the picture to your collection by building up to 500 million Bubs in Deadpool's Diner. Right now we have indications that the base Cassandra Nova card might be available lower down the reward track with the variant being the final reward. That would be great news for accessibility! It's possible that you will be able to unlock her base variant via the Spotlight Caches or Tokens too. If community feedback for Deadpool's Diner is positive, we'll get similar modes each new season.
In Development
The timelines for these roadmaps are a bit wonky. Character Mastery was listed as Coming Soon before and never released, but nearly completed systems like League and Alliances are listed as In Development? Also, Alliances has a hard release date of July 30th, while I'm expecting the new card mechanic in September at the earliest. Check out my other article outlining what we know about future season themes for my full prediction on what that mechanic will be. Let's say I'm quite confident which cards are involved.
Collectible Infinity Splits are also included in this section. If you've been reading our site for a while, you've already seen the new background split effects found in the game files, including the Space background.
We had expected these to enter the game a lot earlier and thought they would be additional possible splits in addition to inked and gold. New Infinity Splits have become Collectible Infinity Splits on the roadmap. However, the word “Collectible” is your real clue to what these are. “Collectible” is a direct stand-in for “Paid.” I expect these to resemble Collectible Borders, a purchasable cosmetic inside the Custom Card menu. If this is how additional backgrounds are to be implemented, it would be a huge miss as it would directly detract from the unique nature of rare splits, which have been a core part of Snap since the beginning. I think this may be another shift of something that would be used for Character Mastery.
In Concept
It is funny that they put the most hotly discussed and often derided aspect of the game, card acquisition, into the section that they describe as “BIG dreams about what we'd like to bring” to the game. However, the big news from this section is the inclusion of Draft Mode. Previously, several members of the Second Dinner team had commented that a Draft Mode was unlikely given its historical lack of relative popularity in other games. However, they stated that a draft mode with their own unique spin on it was possible. A game mode that appeals most to competitive, die-hard players is extremely unlikely. Expect their version of a draft mode to be totally novel, fast and snappy, appealing to casual gamers, and monetized. I am excited at the prospect of Draft Mode and hope it becomes my new favorite mode. It would have to capture that quickness that ladder games provide while still rewarding deep card knowledge and creativity. Ideally, any new game mode will be fun enough for all types of players so that it is sufficiently popular. Unlike some of the other aspects of this new roadmap, this feels right in Second Dinner’s wheelhouse, and I have high hopes that the team will create something unique and fun.
The items in this section are much further out. We're talking about things we would be lucky to have by the end of the year. I think the game needs a new mode like Draft Mode somewhat urgently. It would be a success if they could get it into the game sometime around 6 months from now. What improvements to card acquisition would be required for that to be considered a success 6-9 months from now? A complete overhaul of the system is unlikely, so I'll say more ways to get cards aside from Spotlight Caches and Tokens would be welcome. It's a tough needle to thread to make sure systems like distributing Cassandra Nova through Deadpool's Diner feel non-trivial but realistically achievable for the average player willing to commit some time to doing it. A decrease in the amount of time it takes to get through series 3 would also be good for the game.
As for Alliance Competitions, this will depend on how successful Alliances are generally. In-game social systems can be great, but they need to be careful not to make them feel burdensome or excessively anxiety-inducing. Alliance competitions that give decent rewards to all participants and bragging rights to a select few could be very successful.
Let us know what you think about the latest roadmap in the comments! What are you most excited about? What would a “Snappified” version of Draft Mode entail?