Marvel Rivals season 9.5: all the free cosmetics and the schedule from August 7 to September 11

Marvel Rivals shifts into season 9.5 on Friday, August 7, 2026 at 11:00 a.m. Paris time (9:00 a.m. UTC), after roughly two hours of maintenance. Five weeks of content follow, until season 10 launches on September 11, with more than eighteen costumes announced over the period.

Not everything requires payment, far from it. Four separate systems hand out cosmetics without spending a single unit: the season event Creed of Akabba, the Times Square screening, Twitch Drops, and the fishing Event Pass Krakoan Reels Vol. 2. Each has its own window, and two of them close on August 27, two weeks before the end of the season.

Here is the full schedule, the steps to follow for each free source, and a breakdown of the new PYO store format, which changes how you spend without lowering prices.

The full season 9.5 schedule

NetEase published the full roadmap on August 5. It's denser than previous mid-seasons, with a pace of three costumes per week and a big milestone on August 14.

The truly binding deadline isn't the end of the season but August 27. Note in passing that the spelling varies even within NetEase itself: the patch notes display Creed of Akabba, while the roadmap picked up by the press writes Creed of Akkaba, referencing the Akkaba clan from the comics. It is indeed the same event.

Creed of Akabba: the free Sandstorm Soldier costume

This is the season event, the one carrying the most weight. The official banner announces 18 rewards in total, including the Punisher's Sandstorm Soldier costume, described in plain terms as free. The rest of the tier — sprays, emojis, gallery artwork, plates — is split between free rewards and premium rewards, the latter purchasable with units according to the patch notes.

The banner also highlights a Jeff-Pool costume for Jeff the Land Shark, with very recognizable staging. NetEase doesn't specify which tier it falls under: given its placement next to the "free" label reserved for the Sandstorm Soldier, it should be assumed to be a premium reward until the event actually opens.

The method is classic but deserves to be applied in the right order. Marvel Rivals' season events work through missions, with a mix of instantly validated objectives and cumulative objectives (number of matches, playtime, eliminations over time). Open the tab as soon as August 7th and start with the cumulative objectives first: they progress in the background while you complete the others. The short missions, meanwhile, can be wrapped up in a single evening at any point during the twenty days.

With a window running from August 7 to August 27, you have three weekends at your disposal. That's comfortable, but keep in mind that the end date is 11:00 AM Paris time on the 27th: the last usable slot is therefore the evening of the 26th.

Times Square: two minutes for a spray

This is the fastest reward of all of Season 9.5, and probably the one most players will miss. You need to head to the Times Square projection zone and watch the screen for two minutes straight to unlock an exclusive spray.

The detail that matters: the clips shown alternate every hour on the hour between Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Avengers: Age of Ultron. The spray itself is unique — there's no need to wait for a specific movie if your only goal is the reward. However, if you want to see both sequences, you'll need to come back across two different hours.

NetEase doesn't specify which game mode is involved. Since standing still for two minutes isn't compatible with a ranked match, opt for a custom match if map access allows it. Window: August 7, 11:00 AM → August 27, 11:00 AM (Paris time).

Twitch Drops: the Elsa Bloodstone — Will of Galacta costume

The Twitch Drops campaign is the longest of the mid-season: from August 7 at 2:00 PM to September 4 at 11:00 AM (Paris time). It distributes Elsa Bloodstone's Will of Galacta costume as well as related bundle content.

The official procedure, as documented by NetEase, comes down to four steps:

• Log in to your game account on the official website's Twitch Drops page, then link your Twitch account.
• Watch streams in the Marvel Rivals category tagged DropsEnabled — a chat message also confirms this.
• Claim each tier manually from your Drops inventory on Twitch. The same Twitch account can only obtain a given reward once, and linking another game character does not reset the counter.
• Retrieve the reward from your in-game mailbox. Be careful: messages expire after 30 days.

Two classic pitfalls: watching several channels in parallel doesn't speed anything up, only one counts at a time; and nothing is credited in-game until the tier has been validated in the Twitch inventory.

Krakoan Reels Vol. 2: fishing returns on August 14

The fishing mini-game makes its comeback for a second volume, a week after the mid-season launch. The first Krakoan Reels ran from June 18 to July 30, 2026 and offered Mister Fantastic's Fantastic Beach Bod costume for free, with the premium track — named Fishery Club and priced at 990 Lattice — notably adding Coastal Wall-Crawler for Spider-Man and Coastal Couple for Cloak & Dagger.

If NetEase brings back the format unchanged, here's the mechanic to know before August 14:

• 1,950 experience points per match give 1 Bait and 1 X-Bait. Experience accumulates while playing, regardless of the mode.
• Bait is used in the Wild Fishery and feeds the free rewards; X-Bait is used in the X-Fishery and unlocks member-exclusive rewards.
• Catches are sold for Fish Coins: 2 for a common, 4 for an uncommon, 8 for a rare, 12 for an epic, 16 for a legendary. Coins are then spent in the exchange shop, where each tier unlocks five new rewards.
• A collection log tracks the fish caught; completing it granted the Fishing Expert title during the first volume.

On the rewards side, the official roadmap confirms three Swimsuit Special costumes on August 14 for Scarlet Witch, Magik and Storm. The specialized press also mentions swimsuits for Black Cat, Winter Soldier and Star-Lord, with no known split between the free track and the shop as of this writing.

Practical tip: don't hoard your bait. Since the exchange shop progresses in tiers, reaching each tier early leaves you more time to spend your Fish Coins.

PYO bundles: what the new format changes (and what it doesn't)

The shop switches to the PYO ("Pick Your Own") format starting August 7, beginning with the week's three costumes. The principle: instead of buying a closed bundle, you check or uncheck each costume and each emoji pack, and the price adjusts automatically.

The key point is spelled out in black and white in the patch notes: for equivalent content, the adaptive price of the PYO bundle remains exactly the same as the old standard bundles. In other words, this isn't a price cut, it's the end of forced purchases. The only real saving comes from no longer paying for a costume you'll never use just because it was packaged with the one you wanted.

The official screen from August 7 shows the full selection of the three bundles — The Hood (Sinful Blackout), Iron Fist (Furious Flow) and Moon Knight (Fist of Khonshu), costume and emoji options included — at 3,900 versus 8,800 outside the promotion, a 56% discount, over a twenty-seven-day window. With more than two costumes added each week, discipline becomes the real lever: uncheck everything related to a hero you don't play, and save your units for August 14, when the biggest mid-season bundle drops.

The action plan, week by week

• August 7-8: start the Creed of Akabba cumulative missions, link your Twitch account, go grab the Times Square spray (two minutes, don't put it off).
• Until August 14: accumulate match experience and don't spend anything in the shop before seeing what's in the August 14 content.
• August 14: open Krakoan Reels Vol. 2, fish right away, weigh up the Fishery Club once the free track is visible.
• Before the evening of August 26: finish Creed of Akabba and grab the Times Square spray — both close on the 27th at 11:00 AM.
• Before September 4: claim all the Twitch tiers in your inventory, then clear out your in-game mail.

The only real financial trade-off in this mid-season update concerns the Fishery Club. At 990 Lattice for a pass whose free track had already offered a full costume in the first volume, it's only worth it if you play enough to convert your 1,950 experience points into bait several times a week. If you play less than three or four evenings a week, the free track plus the three other sources listed here are more than enough to fill your locker by September 11.