Season 3.5 of Marvel Rivals is finally here, and I cannot wait to waste away this weekend trying out the Blade and slashing my way through the enemy team. Yet before I get carried away, I’m going to make sure my Sony setup is armed with PS5 accessories and prepared for the days ahead.
Besides making sure I’m stocked up on snacks, I like to get ready by grabbing all my favorite PS5 accessories and setting them up to avoid any annoying disruptions. When it comes ot the high-octane stakes of my favorite online game, I don’t want to be left with my PS5 controller going dead mid-match, so a charging stand is a must-have. Not to mention, I can’t report on the enemy team to my pals without a PS5 headset with a good-quality microphone.
If you’re also planning a weekend of Marvel Rival action, I’ve laid out the top 4 accessories I wouldn’t be caught trying to learn how to main Blade without. It’s likely these accessories won’t arrive at your door until next week, but I still wholeheartedly recommend them if you’re a PS5 Marvel Rivals player who wants a stress-free online experience throughout this brand-new mid-season update.
Lexar Play 2280 PS5 SSD
Before you delve into the new season, you’re gonna want to ensure you have enough space to install it in the first place. Your PS5’s onboard storage might be for the task, but if you could use some extra GBs, I highly recommend picking up a PS5 SSD. This 4TB Lexar Play 2280 PS5 SSD, available for $224.99 at Costco, has become my saving grace for PS5 game updates, especially when it comes to online titles like Marvel Rivals.
Updates for online games are some of the most infuriating things in modern gaming, as they steadily add more and more to the overall install size to the point where my launch model wasn’t able to keep up. Season 3.5 only requires an additional 5GB worth of space, but that’s on top of the existing 62.35GB of the base game, which I struggled to make room for until I was able to transfer it to the M.2 drive.
4TB is a lot, and if you don’t need that much space, you can always opt for a 1TB SSD instead. However, having this Lexar drive in time for the 3.5 season has taken away any stress I had about having to delete the many single-player games I’m currently playing. I don’t want to prepare for any more future Marvel Rival seasons without it.
Marvel Universe Controller Thumb Grips
I’m going to get this out of the way first, these are not officially licensed Marvel PS5 stick grips. For now, there aren’t any legit Marvel alternatives out there for your PS5 controller, so if you don’t mind their unofficial appeal, these grips are some of my favorite PS5 accessories to get into the Marvel Rivals mood.
I’m not a Spider-Man main (Scarlet Witch, Cloak and Dagger, and Invisible Woman are my jam), but there’s nothing I love more than to get through the battle pass with Spidey’s little dorky face staring up at me from my DualSense controller. Besides their ability to make your PS5 feel more Marvel Rivals adjacent, they actually make playing the hero-shooter more comfortable too.
Instead of that slight drip that’s found on the center of each stick, these Spidey grips are more rounded, and the Spider-Man webbed print adds an extra grippy texture, which has actually managed to improve my aim. I can’t promise they’ll do the same for you, but I can say with confidence they’ll add a bit of Marvel-themed joy to your boring old controller.
SteelSeries Arctis Nova 5P wireless headset
I play a lot of Marvel Rivals with my fiancé and my friends, and so having one of the best PS5 headsets as part of my setup is a must, which is why you’ll often find me ranking up my Invisible Woman to Lord with the Arctis Nova 5P on my head. This headset is designed for PS5 players, so it’s incredibly easy to set up, requiring just the accompanying 2.4GHz dongle to be popped into the spare USB-C port on your console, and that’s it.
However, what makes it a dream to use alongside the hero-shooter is its great sound and high-quality mic. The headset is equipped with SteelSeries’ 40mm Neodymium magnetic audio drivers, which elevates the energetic soundstage of the game, but most importantly, its spatial audio support lets you make out even the most quiet of enemy footsteps. Rival team members flanking you down is common in Marvel Rivals, but I’ve been able to take out those conniving heroes as the 5P has made every sneaky footstep as clear as the last.
Its ClearCast Gen 2 retractable microphone is also one of the best tools I have at my disposal when playing the game. Any time I go back to this headset after testing another, my friends know instantly what I’m using as I go back to sounding crystal clear thanks to its Bidirectional noise-canceling polar pattern. It helps, too, that it has sidetone, so I’ve been able to monitor how loud I sound when crying to my friends to protect me from scary tanks and prickly situations I always get into as a healer main.
PS5 DualSense Charging Station
As much as I adore the PS5 DualSense when it comes to modern gaming controllers, its battery is pretty horrendous. It’s so bad that I’m not sure I’d be able to play Marvel Rivals without this official DualSense Charging Station hooked up to my PS5, or any game for that matter.
With it, I’m able to constantly have two gamepads being charged while I’m playing another, and it’s saved the day more than once during Marvel Rivals matches. Just the other day, my Astro Bot DualSense died mid-match when I was trying to keep my team healed as Invisable Women, but fortunately, I was able to quickly jump to my feet in time and easily pick up one of the charging controllers from this dock.
If you’re a PC Marvel Rivals player, one of the best PC controllers for gaming, one of the PC headsets for gaming, or one of the best gaming chairs will also pair perfectly with the new 3.5 season.
