Multiversus, the Super Smash Bros-styled fighting game featuring Warner Bros. characters like Batman, Arya Stark, Shaggy, and Rick & Morty, is relaunching on May 28th. After a period of radio silence, Player First Games has announced that the game will be returning with updates to its online play, a switch to Unreal Engine 5, new system mechanics, additional characters, and more.
For those confused because they (understandably) thought the game was already released, Multiversus originally became playable as an open beta in July of 2022. At launch, it seemed to be a hit, attracting 20 million players in its first month while hitting over 150 thousand concurrent users on Steam. At launch, it was quite well-received for finding its own niche compared to its inspiration, Super Smash Bros.
However, things quickly nosedived after this explosive start. By March 2023, it was down to under one thousand concurrent players on Steam, marking an over 99% drop in users. There were many reasons for this decline, but some of the most commonly cited ones were dissatisfaction over its monetization, a lack of satisfying updates, and core issues with its gameplay and online experience that became apparent with time. As for the gameplay issues, many players couldn’t find stable matches and complained that hitboxes (where an attack hits) felt off, among other problems. But perhaps the most dissatisfaction came from its micro-transactions, including how much cosmetics cost, the amount of grinding it took to complete the battle pass, and how much new members of the cast went for. Additional character releases were also relatively slow, and fighters like Stripe from Gremlins launched with little fanfare.
After the rapid decline, Player First Games or Warner Bros. decided to go for a hard reset, shutting off its online servers on June 25th, 2023, and removing it from storefronts with the promise it would eventually return. This caused quite a bit of backlash in the community, as it was never communicated that this beta would be temporary, and no refunds were offered despite the fact they had already sold both in-game currency and launch character bundles, which ran as high as $100.
It remains to be seen how the game will fare nearly two years since its open-beta launched and a year after it was shut down. Warner Bros recently announced that the company is pivoting to focus on free-to-play games over AAA releases, but with David Zaslav at the head of the ship, who’s been described as “the most hated man in Hollywood for burning down projects at a moment’s notice, it’s probably safe to assume that if Multiversus can’t capture at least some of its early success, it may not be long for this world. All that said, only time will tell which way things break and if the studio has learned from its previous hangups.
The game’s relaunch trailer can be viewed below: