If you have been diving into Marvel Rivals lately, you have probably heard the hype around Blood Hunt mode. This limited-time PvE experience dropped with Season 7.5 on April 23, and it brings an entirely different flavor to the game. Instead of fighting other players, you and up to three teammates face off against waves of vampire enemies, four brutal bosses, and a hidden encounter that most players still do not know about.
In this guide, I will walk you through everything you need to know about Marvel Rivals Blood Hunt mode. From launching it for the first time to unlocking the secret Kingpin boss fight, we are covering it all. The event runs until July 30, so there is plenty of time to grind through the content, but getting started early gives you a massive advantage when it comes to gear drops and rewards.
Marvel Rivals Blood Hunt is a limited-time PvE mode that transforms the competitive hero shooter into a cooperative survival experience. You pick from six available heroes and battle through waves of vampire enemies across multiple phases. Each phase ramps up the difficulty and introduces new enemy types, culminating in boss fights against iconic Marvel characters twisted by the vampire curse.
The mode launched on April 23 as part of Season 7.5 and will remain active until July 30. Unlike the standard PvP modes, Blood Hunt features a full progression system with gear drops, trait skill trees, and arcana upgrades. Think of it as a mini action-RPG layered on top of the Marvel Rivals formula.
What makes this mode special is how it handles difficulty. You can replay encounters on four progressively harder tiers, and the gear you earn on lower difficulties prepares you for the challenges ahead. The harder the difficulty, the better the rewards, and the true endgame challenge, a hidden boss fight, only appears on Extreme difficulty and above.
Getting into Blood Hunt mode is straightforward, but the option can be easy to miss if you do not know where to look.
Step 1: Launch Marvel Rivals and head to the main menu.
Step 2: Look for the Blood Hunt event banner or navigate to the Events tab.
Step 3: Select Blood Hunt mode from the available event modes.
Step 4: Choose your hero from the six available characters.
Step 5: Queue up solo or with a team of up to 4 players.
One important note from the community: some players are experiencing crashes when first entering Blood Hunt mode. If the game crashes on you, a simple restart usually fixes it. This appears to be a known bug that the developers are tracking, so expect a patch soon. If it keeps happening, try verifying your game files before relaunching.
Blood Hunt mode gives you access to six heroes, each bringing a different playstyle to the cooperative experience. Here is the full roster:
If you are wondering which hero to invest in first, the community consensus points strongly toward Moon Knight. His melee build dominates PvE encounters, and investing your early gear upgrades into him pays off across all difficulty levels. Blade is a solid second choice, especially if you prefer a more aggressive playstyle.
Blood Hunt introduces a three-layered progression system that sets it apart from standard Marvel Rivals gameplay. Understanding how these systems interact is the key to clearing higher difficulties.
After each Blood Hunt run, you earn gear drops for the hero you played. Gear comes in different rarities, and each hero has four gear slots: weapon, armor, accessory, and exclusive. Higher rarity gear provides better stat bonuses, and you can scrap unwanted gear to forge new pieces. The forge system lets you target specific gear types, which is useful when you are trying to complete a build for a specific hero.
Gear drops are RNG-based, meaning better runs on higher difficulties yield better gear. This creates a natural progression loop where you farm lower difficulties for baseline gear, then push into harder content once your heroes are properly equipped.
As you play Blood Hunt, you earn trait points that go into a skill tree unique to this mode. These traits provide passive bonuses like increased damage, better survivability, or improved cooldown management. The skill tree branches out, so you need to choose your path carefully based on your hero and playstyle.
For beginners, I recommend focusing on survivability traits first. Once you are comfortable with the boss mechanics, you can respec into damage-focused traits for faster clears.
The Arcana system is the third progression layer, and it uses scrolls that you collect during runs. Arcana upgrades provide global bonuses that apply across all heroes in Blood Hunt mode, making them especially valuable if you plan to play multiple characters. Scrolls come in different tiers, with higher tiers offering more powerful upgrades.
Prioritize Arcana upgrades that boost your team-wide damage output or survivability early on. These global bonuses compound with your gear and trait choices, creating a snowball effect that makes subsequent runs significantly easier.
Blood Hunt features four boss encounters, each with unique mechanics that require different strategies. Here is a breakdown of every boss and how to approach them.
Capwolf is a vampiric version of Captain America, and he serves as your first real test in Blood Hunt. He charges at players with sweeping melee attacks and occasionally throws his shield in a wide arc. The key to this fight is spacing. Keep your distance during his charge attacks, then close in for damage during his recovery windows.
Capwolf also summons smaller vampire minions during the fight. Have one player focus on clearing adds while the rest of the team burns the boss. Moon Knight’s crowd control abilities shine here.
The squirrel god Ratatoskr brings a more chaotic fight with rapid movement and area-denial mechanics. She jumps around the arena, leaving hazard zones that damage players who stand in them. The trick is to stay mobile and avoid clustering up, which minimizes the damage from her area attacks.
Watch for her tells before big attacks. She pauses briefly before leaping, giving you a window to dodge. Ranged heroes like Doctor Strange have an easier time in this fight since they can maintain damage output while staying out of her melee range.
Dracula is the main antagonist of Blood Hunt and the most complex boss in the mode. His fight spans multiple phases, and each phase introduces new mechanics. The community has identified four distinct phases, with phase 4 being the make-or-break moment.
During phases 1 through 3, Dracula uses a mix of melee swipes, blood projectiles, and summoning attacks. Learn the timing of his projectile patterns and dodge sideways rather than backward, as backward dodges often put you in the path of follow-up attacks.
Phase 4 introduces a sunlight mechanic. The arena shifts, and patches of sunlight appear on the ground. Positioning Dracula in these sunlight zones weakens him significantly, reducing his damage output and making him vulnerable to burst damage. Coordinate with your team to lure him into these zones. This phase is where most teams wipe on Extreme difficulty, so save your revives and cooldowns for this final push.
Kingpin is the secret boss of Blood Hunt, and he is not available through normal progression. To unlock him, you must clear Extreme difficulty for the first time. After that, Kingpin appears as an additional encounter at the end of your Extreme and Nightmare runs.
Kingpin hits hard. His attacks have massive hitboxes and can one-shot squishier heroes on Nightmare difficulty. The strategy here is patience. Do not greed for damage during his attack windows. Wait for him to commit to an attack, dodge it, then punish during his recovery frames.
He also has a grab attack that can instantly down a player if it connects. Keep your distance when he winds up for the grab, and have your team ready to revive anyone who gets caught. A coordinated team with voice communication makes this fight significantly more manageable.
Blood Hunt offers four difficulty tiers, each scaling up enemy health, damage, and mechanics.
Normal is the entry point. Enemy damage is forgiving, and boss mechanics are simplified. This is where you farm your initial gear and learn the encounter layouts. Most teams can clear Normal within their first few attempts.
Hard introduces additional enemy waves and boss mechanics. Bosses gain new attack patterns, and enemies hit noticeably harder. You want to have at least a full set of common gear on your hero before pushing into Hard.
Extreme is where the mode opens up. Enemy scaling jumps significantly, bosses enrage faster, and coordination becomes essential. This is also the difficulty that unlocks the hidden Kingpin boss encounter. Clear Extreme for the first time, and Kingpin becomes available as a post-Dracula challenge.
Nightmare is the highest tier and represents the true endgame challenge. Every enemy hits like a truck, bosses have additional mechanics, and there is zero room for error. You need top-tier gear, fully invested trait trees, and strong Arcana upgrades to compete at this level. Only a small percentage of the player base has cleared Nightmare so far.
Blood Hunt offers a range of rewards tied to specific challenges. Here is what you can earn:
The gear you earn from Blood Hunt applies specifically to this mode, but the exclusive cosmetic rewards carry over to your overall profile. Completing challenges also unlocks free rewards, making this a worthwhile grind even if PvE is not your primary focus in Marvel Rivals.
Gear rarity directly correlates with difficulty level. Normal drops mostly common and uncommon gear. Hard adds rare drops. Extreme introduces epic gear. Nightmare has the highest chance for top-tier legendary drops. If you are chasing specific gear pieces, target the highest difficulty you can reliably clear.
After spending time with the mode and combing through community strategies, here are the tips that make the biggest difference.
Upgrade one hero first. Do not spread your resources thin across multiple characters. Pick your main, invest heavily in their gear and traits, and push as far as you can with them before branching out.
Play with a coordinated team. Blood Hunt is designed around teamwork. Even a basic callout system over voice chat dramatically improves your success rate, especially on Extreme and Nightmare difficulties.
Farm lower difficulties before pushing up. There is no shame in grinding Normal or Hard for gear before tackling Extreme. The gear difference between someone in baseline common gear and someone in full rare gear is massive.
Save your revives for the final boss phase. Revives are limited, and blowing them early on trash waves means you will be scrambling during the boss encounters when you actually need them.
Learn boss mechanics before optimizing damage. Every boss has telegraphed attacks with specific timing. Spend your first few runs learning the patterns instead of chasing damage numbers. Once you know the mechanics, your damage output naturally improves because you are dying less and spending more time actually attacking.
Try Moon Knight if you are struggling. The community has spoken on this one. Moon Knight’s melee build with crowd control abilities makes him the standout hero for Blood Hunt PvE content. If you are hitting a wall, switching to Moon Knight might be the easiest solution.
Marvel Rivals Blood Hunt mode is one of the most engaging limited-time events the game has offered. With six heroes to master, four bosses to conquer, a hidden boss to unlock, and a deep progression system to grind through, there is something here for every type of player. The event runs until July 30, so jump in, pick your hero, and start clearing those vampire hordes.
Open Marvel Rivals, go to the Events tab on the main menu, and select Blood Hunt mode. Choose from one of six available heroes and queue up solo or with a team of up to 4 players. You will face waves of vampire enemies and boss encounters across multiple phases.
You must clear Extreme difficulty for the first time. After that, Kingpin appears as an additional boss encounter at the end of Extreme and Nightmare difficulty runs. He does not appear on Normal or Hard difficulties.
Six heroes are playable: Blade, Moon Knight, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, Wolverine, and Iron Fist. Moon Knight is widely considered the strongest pick for PvE content based on community feedback.
Learn his four phases. During phase 4, patches of sunlight appear in the arena. Position Dracula in these sunlight zones to weaken him. Save your revives and cooldown abilities for this final phase, as it is the hardest part of the fight. Dodge sideways rather than backward to avoid his follow-up attacks.
Blood Hunt is a limited-time event that runs from April 23 to July 30, 2026. All progression and rewards are only available during this window.
Community consensus points to Moon Knight as the top pick for Blood Hunt PvE. His melee build provides excellent crowd control and scales extremely well with the gear system. Blade is a strong second choice for players who prefer aggressive sustained damage.
Some players experience crashes when first entering Blood Hunt mode. This is a known bug. Restarting the game usually resolves it. If crashes persist, try verifying your game files through your platform’s game management settings before relaunching.
There are four difficulty tiers: Normal, Hard, Extreme, and Nightmare. Each tier increases enemy health, damage, and boss mechanics. Extreme is required to unlock the hidden Kingpin boss. Nightmare is the highest challenge level with the best gear drops.
