Nearly a year later, I still cannot quite believe that free-to-play platform brawler MultiVersus from developer Player First Games actually unlaunched itself. But it did do that, pulling itself out of Open Beta into effectively nothingness. But what is somehow even less believable is the fact that it's genuinely coming back, and yet I've played several sessions of it myself, and I have been assured multiple times that it is officially set to launch on May 28 with new characters, maps, modes, and even a new game engine.
If you're not already familiar, MultiVersus' whole premise is essentially bringing together the worlds and characters of what is currently called Warner Bros. Discovery. That means Wonder Woman fighting Rick from Rick and Morty and Gizmo of Gremlins fame duking it out with Finn from Adventure Time. And that was before! The new full launch has even more characters. I can personally confirm that Jason from Friday the 13th rules, Joker is wild, and Banana Guard from Adventure Time is… well, Banana Guard from Adventure Time.
In addition to playing a bit of the game in a walled garden of sorts ahead of the full release, 12DOVE also had the opportunity to speak with Tony Huynh, game director on MultiVersus, about the game's sabbatical, new characters, and even its all-new PvE mode.
Second time's the charm
The original plan has always been to learn as much as possible and to deliver the absolute best experience possible.
"The original plan has always been to learn as much as possible and to deliver the absolute best experience possible," says Huynh when asked about the unusual circumstances leading to MultiVersus being offline for a year. "That's what Open Beta did for us, which is let us learn as much as possible. And part of that gave us a plan to rebuild the entire game from the ground up, and that's what we needed to do to deliver the best experience possible."
As an example of the benefits of the game's respite, Huynh says MultiVersus now has "absolute world-class netcode." According to him, regardless of whether you're playing across time zones from around the country, it'll feel like you're still just playing offline. "We want as many players to be able to play together as possible," he adds.
Admittedly, my time with MultiVersus was almost universally smooth as butter. Barring some production hiccups apparently caused by the nature of the preview – running a live service ahead of the "live" part of the "service" being, well, live is seemingly troublesome – matchmaking netcode felt just about perfect. There's no telling how it might hold up to the squeeze of the full launch, but still.
"The other pieces are really developing our production pipelines," he says, "so we can deliver a lot of content, consistently, and be able to have a lot of cosmetics and deliver a service game with a lot of different events that can happen in the game – really building out a great service experience; a lot of content, new characters, new maps… All these things required us to really evaluate our content pipelines, and how that would go forward."
Every single file in the game had to be rebuilt, according to Huynh, with a switch to Unreal Engine 5. He calls the lighting and art quality two specific examples of noticeable improvement, though in my humble opinion it does help that the game's cartoonish nature has a somewhat evergreen feeling to it. And while what's under the hood has certainly received a significant upgrade, the biggest change to the way the game plays is easily the entirely new PvE mode, Rifts.
Holy minigames, Batman
Previously, MultiVersus was basically like any other traditional fighting game with the small twist of team battles. You had your 1v1s, your 2v2s, a training/practice mode, and so on. But the full launch has added Rifts, which are essentially a bunch of chapters featuring various challenges broken down into "nodes" with objectives that can range from beating a boss to platforming challenges to… smacking each other with cooked chicken.
As for why the developer chose to go this route, Huynh boils it down to two major factors: story and co-op. With players that really genuinely care about the characters and embrace them, Rifts gives them a mode to "really lean into," according to him, as either a casual or core gamer. But it's simply playing together, outside of competitive PVP, that's perhaps the most important aspect.
"You can just play with your friends, tackle the Rifts, both individually or with a friend, and I think it's a great experience," says Huynh. "It's got permanent power progression as well, where you gain gems and get stronger through play. And it's just got a really diverse kind of experience there with a lot of minigames and modes, a lot of mutators."
"I think it's super fun, whether you're playing alone or with a friend, and there's gonna be regular content updates to it as well going forward," he adds. What, exactly, that might look like he doesn't elaborate on, but he does say that there will be "brand-new Rifts" coming with some regularity after launch.
Proof in the puddin'
Whether all of this makes enough of a difference for MultiVersus to lead a long and happy service, I can't possibly say. I've had a good time in the preview, but I'm certainly not a truly competitive player, and while I understand the concept of terms like "footsies," I'm far from being able to chain inputs in a coherent way.
Fighting games, for me, are largely vibes. I like playing them! I do a middling job at it, and lose just as often as I win if not more, but I like doing so. And while the new, updated version of Wonder Woman in the new, updated version of MultiVersus isn't quite the same as she was before, whoopin' on Steven Universe as her feels just as good as it ever did.
But the sad fact is that I'm not sure I believe good gameplay is what's going to make a difference in a free-to-play live service title of any stripe, not in 2024. Whether MultiVersus lives or dies will depend on how fiddly the monetization ends up being. It'll depend on how frequently the developers can put out new and interesting content for purchase and consumption with their newly renovated content pipelines. MultiVersus' survival will ultimately come down to the difference between "good" and "good enough" in terms of profits.
I try not to worry too much about all of that, however. It's not really my purpose to figure out whether a business model is sustainable. I've enjoyed playing MultiVersus, and I'm likely to enjoy the full game, but while I'm beating the pants off a fictional reindeer dog after launch, some part of me will also likely be considering just how long I'll have left to do so.
MultiVersus is set to launch again on May 28 for the PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC. If the platform brawler isn't your cup of tea, you can always check out some of the other best fighting games around.
