The Warner Bros. crossover fighter returns with more characters and modes, but is it enough to make it a long term success?
During its beta run, MultiVersus was the textbook example of how quickly live service games can rise and fall. When it launched back in July 2022, the free-to-play platform fighter rocketed to 10 million players within three weeks, setting it up as a potentially legitimate rival to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate in terms of popularity. Six months later, as the new content schedule started to dry up, the player base had dropped by 99% on Steam.
While it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what caused this dramatic slide, ensuring longevity is the biggest hurdle facing MultiVersus in its full launch. It’s clear developer Player First Games have made some steps to address this issue, along with revamping the general fighting mechanics for the better, but the biggest question is whether a casual fighting game like this is actually suited to the free-to-play model, which hinges on frequent daily play.
When stripped to its core, MultiVersus in this incarnation is more fun than it’s ever been. If you missed the first round, this is essentially the same premise as Nintendo’s platform fighter: up to four players batter to rack up each other’s damage percentage, which makes it easier to smack them off the stage for a knockout.
Aside from the roster of Warner Bros. characters, the main difference when compared to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is the emphasis on co-op play. Free-for-all matches are available, but the game feels designed around 2v2. Some character moves provide buffs to your teammate, like temporary shields or cooldown reductions, while certain perks you equip also give your ally an extra boost, like temporary damage increases. The effects are minor but if you coordinate well with your teammate, the stacked buffs can help turn the tide of battle in crucial moments.
In the transition from beta to its full launch, MultiVersus has made some wise adjustments to its overall pace. If the chaotic action felt slightly loose before, it feels tighter and weightier here – with the reduced speed making everything more readable and satisfying. It still isn’t as refined or tactile as Nintendo’s crossover fighter, with the animation having a slight stickiness which makes it feel less responsive in comparison, but it’s a notable improvement over the beta.
The other key addition is Rifts, a new single-player mode which shares some similarities with the solo mode in Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 – albeit stripped of the interesting roguelike elements. It’s essentially a sequence of fights interspersed with mini-games, which range from rope jumping and cannon shooting to a shameless copy of break the targets from Super Smash Bros. There’s an attempt to differentiate these Rifts with some narrative, with the first hinged around Batman tracking down the Joker, but it’s so blandly presented, through clunky text exchanges, it might as well not exist.
While it functions as a way to accumulate rewards without stepping into the intimidating online space, the Rifts are uninspired – both in terms of presentation and design. It’s perhaps unreasonable to expect high production values from the single-player mode of a free-to-play title (even if the opening cinematic is surprisingly slick) but Rifts feels hastily slapped together and not the enjoyable celebration of the various IPs that it should have been. As shown in the menus, there’s plans for more Rifts themed around different members of the roster, but it’s hard to imagine it offering any compelling longevity based on what’s available now.
It’s a shame because the roster itself is a brilliantly absurd mash-up, with each feeling distinct and well-realised. All the previous characters are back, like Bugs Bunny, Superman, and Gizmo, along with a couple of new additions. Mark Hamill’s Joker is a welcome if predictable newcomer but Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th feels destined to be a twisted favourite – especially for horror nerds who will recognise the references to shoving people in sleeping bags or the bed folding crush from Freddy vs. Jason. He’s incredibly fun to play as too, a hulking brute with sweeping chops who is a deadly menace at close range.
There’s plenty of variety elsewhere in the roster too. LeBron James from Space Jam: A New Legacy is a powerful bruiser who slugs basketballs like bombs, while Marvin The Martian is a comical bag of manipulative tricks and laser gun blasts. Mechanically, Tom and Jerry are still one of the most rewarding – with the potential to set up some strategic dual plays as you throw Jerry to the other side of the map and ping tennis balls between each other.
MultiVersus succeeds at being a robust and creative fighting game, but the multitude of free-to-play trappings conspire to suck the joy out of the room. After every match, you’re faced with a litany of progress bars between daily and weekly challenges, with rewards spread across four in-game currencies to buy new perks, fighters or cosmetics. This is par for the course in the realms of live service but here it feels like a sharp, depressing comedown when juxtaposed against the chaotic, entertaining matches themselves – like getting congratulated by a Warner Bros. executive who has one eye on your bank card.
It doesn’t help that the menu layout and large amount of currencies make everything even more of a headache than usual. Progression trackers and currency totals are constantly in view, while the shop itself is broken down between a dizzying amount of storefronts for skins, new fighters, special bundles, perks, prestige outfits, and Gleamium – which you can buy for cosmetics. It’s needlessly complicated and always present, giving the entirety of MultiVersus a cold, corporate quality whenever you’re outside of the gameplay itself.
As such, the best way to play MultiVersus is online, because then you spend less time staring at its microtransaction bones. Based on the matches we played at launch on the PlayStation 5, the matchmaking is fast and slick, with very little lag to speak of within games. It’s the biggest selling point of the entire package, along with its local multiplayer options. At the time of writing though, ranked online modes have yet to be switched on, and while there’s no explanation why, this will likely be activated at some point in the first season (if it hasn’t already).
The future of MultiVersus remains to be seen, but if it is aspiring to become a go-to fighting game for both offline and online gatherings, nothing spoils the party more than the free-to-play shell it’s encased in. This model might make it more accessible to players in the short term, but when it’s weighing down the overall experience like this, it’s hard not to see history repeating itself sooner or later – even if you can butcher Shaggy with a machete.
Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, and PC
Price: Free
Publisher: Warner Bros. Games
Developer: Player First Games
Release Date: 28th May 2024
Age Rating: 12
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