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“Multiversus” is the video game that best encapsulates the way companies see their audience: as insatiable consumers

For years we have been seeing that the crossover trend is endless in the world of video games: ‘Fortnite’ has mixed with all imaginable franchises, ‘Call of Duty’ is on it, and ‘Super Smash Bros’ has long ceased to be a simple experiment to build an empire of franchises, the crazier the better. And that’s how they see us: as a group of kids who want to know who would win in a fight between Goku and Super Mario and are willing to spend whatever it takes to find out.

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The Multiverse of Madness

The perfect example is ‘MultiVersus’, a free-to-play fighting game that will be released on May 28th and has announced a roster of franchises ranging from ‘Adventure Time’ to ‘Batman’ including ‘Steven Universe’, ‘Rick and Morty’ or ‘Friday the 13th’. In other words: if a Warner franchise has fans, even if they are niche, it will appear here.

It is up to us, as consumers, to resist the obvious sirens’ songs that will come, as usual, in the form of season passes, variants, characters, costumes, skins, and more. And their new trailer is the perfect example of how they intend to hook us: Do you want to see Agent Smith from The Matrix face off against Arya Stark from ‘Game of Thrones’? Or Batman going up against Tom and Jerry? Congratulations: your dream has come true. It coincides with my nightmare.

It is curious that among the characters there are only three from Looney Tunes (Taz, Marvin the Martian and Bugs Bunny) compared to seven from the DC universe, for example. As an experiment, it serves to see which franchises Warner trusts and what they want to promote in the future, but this kind of Smash Bros, fun as it may be, is a constant reminder that we are only consumers and numbers in the investors’ bank account. And increasingly, sadly, more so.

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Joker set to join the MultiVersus

Mark Hamill’s Joker might be making his way into MultiVersus soon. This has in no way been confirmed by Warner Bros., but a deep delve into the game’s files has revealed almost irrefutable evidence that this will be the case – likely in the coming months.

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The results of the data mine were first posted to Twitter by a user named Laisul and feature various pieces of audio that seem to have been voiced by Mark Hamill. As you may be aware, Hamill voices the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series. Given that Batman has already joined the roster of characters you can choose from in MutliVersus, even logically, it’s not a stretch to think that Joker would join the ranks eventually.

Joker Announcer Pack voicelines#MultiVersus pic.twitter.com/BWH43CRp0l
— Laisul (@LaisulMV) September 27, 2022

Just to push the authenticity of the clip over the top, it doesn’t just feature a bunch of Mark Hamill lines from the animated series. The lines recorded are specifically geared towards a fighting game like MultiVersus. This is clear by lines such as ‘Points to the blue bozos!’ and ‘That’s a point for the red rejects!’ These two lines are the most compelling evidence and most likely reference the tag team structure that MultiVersus employs.

If you aren’t familiar, MutiVersus lets you play either 1v1, 2v2, or a 4-player free for all, and this kind of dialog matches up perfectly with the red and blue team formations in the game.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a data mine of MultiVersus turn up evidence for future characters, and previously, those leaks have all been confirmed in subsequent updates. We’re still waiting for Rick and Morty to join the ranks, but we’ve already seen LeBron James leaked in a previous data mine, and he is now in the game officially.

In other MultiVersus news, the MultiVersus open beta is now live as per Leri Koen’s latest report.

What’s new in MultiVersus update 1.01

We’re finally here folks! MultiVersus received its first seasonal update, patch 1.01, with a new character and some changes. Warner Bros and Player First Games went to extensive lengths to ensure you have a balanced brawling system. I’m sure there will be more updates arriving soon.

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For now, let’s look at what’s new in MultiVersus with the latest update. While we only see one new character for now, there’s the promise of more on the way. Season 1 is going to include Stripe from the Gremlins franchise and Black Adam from D.C.

Morty arrives in MultiVersus

Much to many players’ delight, Morty has joined MultiVersus in the action as a bruiser-class fighter. You even get to use his Plumbus in the battles. Warner Bros. has mentioned that his grandfather, Rick, will be coming to the brawling game soon, and it will be interesting to see what his abilities will be.

Some general environmental updates

MultiVersus also receives several perks and environmental updates that provide a better experience. The ice projectiles will only activate a debuff on players that haven’t already been struck by it during the match. That means you won’t see your stats decreasing more than they should.

The unstacked cooldown usually has a refund of 0.5 seconds. This amount has been lowered to 0.25 seconds. On the stacked cooldown side of the gameplay system, the refund lowers from 1 to 0.5 seconds.

Character changes in MultiVersus

Along with the two updates above, some of the characters have updated buffs and stats to make them more balanced. A few of them have improvements, while others may not be seen in a good light. It’s all in an effort to make MultiVersus as well-balanced a brawling game as possible.

Arya

Our Game of Thrones hero, Arya Stark, has some excellent improvements. Where before the lowered extra damage received was 14%, it’s been reduced to 5%. At the moment, Player First Games is considering removing the passive ability completely. The main fear is that everyone will then turn to play as the assassin. However, you won’t see the details change in the character MoveList until the next patch arrives.

Finn

You may have missed it, but MultiVersus had lowered some of the Backpack power that Finn uses, as it was generally overpowered. To balance that act, there’s now new power in some of the character’s other attacks. These include:

The same assassin passive ability as Arya
Increasing the damage and knockback scaling slightly from 18 up to 20
A new Air/Ground special called BMP Chop
An increase in the base damage, specifically when you charge your attack

As with Arya Stark, the developer will also remove the assassin passive from Finn should they decide to completely get rid of the ability.

Harley

The main change here is that the same assassin passive ability has the abovementioned alteration. It’s a pity more work wasn’t done on this beloved D.C. character, as she seems to be one of the most popular ones used in MultiVersus battles. Out of all the fights I’ve attended, I would say about 80% of them consisted of competing against a Harley character. Perhaps we’ll see more updates in time to come.

Iron Giant

Here’s the first MultiVersus update that sees a reduction in the fighter’s skills. The problem is that the Iron Giant was previously overpowered. With too many players complaining about no windows of opportunity against this metal beast, Player First Games decided to reduce some of the stats. The same applies to Velma, but I’ll get to that later.

For now, here are the changes to the Iron Giant that will give other players a chance to fight back:

Cold down for the Air/Ground special neutral attack increases from 23 to 25 seconds
With the Air Up move, the visuals are more accurate in terms of the hitboxes, which are now smaller
The special for the Air/Ground Up attack has reduced damage by 1, and there’s now a base knockback when you reach the final spinning hit
Finally, the special for the Air/Ground Down attack has a chance of being canceled when it strikes an opponent.

Superman

Our Kryptonite friend doesn’t really receive much in terms of stat changes. There was a glitch where Superman could grapple any opponent on a wall-bounce, even if you didn’t connect with the hitbox of your opponent. Depending on whose side you’re on, you’ll be happy to know that MultiVersus no longer has this bug. You can now go back to regular Superman activity.

Velma

Our final hero to receive some changes in Multiversus is Velma. The only change is that her Air/Ground Down ability has a lowered cooldown return, altering from the 75% over 8 seconds to the new 50% over 8 seconds. As with Iron Giant, this update is needed to make her slightly less powerful.

Future MultiVersus character changes

Two characters in MultiVersus are mentioned in the patch notes without any current changes. The sole purpose of including their names is to let us know that future updates will include some improvements for them. These heroes are Taz from Looney Tunes and Garney.

If you haven’t played the brawling game yet and you’re wondering if it’s worth joining, you can read my epic MultiVersus review. You’ll see I’m quite honest about how I feel about the new Warner Bros. title.

MultiVersus Review | Branded fighting fun

MultiVersus is a free-to-play fighting game by Warner Bros. Games that launched on July 19, 2022. Developed by Player First Games, it features many characters under the Warner Bros. license, including some popular D.C. superheroes and villains. It’s predominantly a multiplayer game, but there are options to play against bots instead of human players.

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With cross-play functionality, I was able to play Multiversus on PC and PS4 to compare how it feels on both platforms. While it’s free to play, there are microtransactions and Battle Pass tiers teasing you to buy them. You can also purchase bundles for the game that will give you tons of rewards. Let’s take a look at all it has to offer.

Let the MultiVersus battles begin!

There’s almost nothing better than playing a new game with faces and characters you love in a new setting. MultiVersus paves the way for us to pit our favorite heroes and villains against each other while trying to swat each other off the screen. As a starter, let’s evaluate some background and story elements in the game.

Stolen from their universes

As the intro begins, you’ll have only a slight idea of how everyone ends up in the same place to battle each other. They’re snapped from their primary universes and then suddenly appear in–who knows where. If you want to enjoy MultiVersus to its fullest, don’t try to find any rhyme or reason for their presence in the game.

Also, there’s no actual motive for them to be fighting each other. As with most brawling games, it simply sets the scene for players to choose a character they love and bash online opponents. There’s no creativity in a storyline like Fortnite and Injustice 2 managed to pull off.

Battle Pass missions

The only semblance of a story is with the Battle Pass missions. As you complete them, you’ll earn experience to level up and move to the next tier. However, I wouldn’t really call them a campaign. MultiVersus merely treats you to quests like toasting your enemy five times or winning three matches. You won’t have anything interesting like Batman asking Harlequin out on a date just to upset the Joker.

Character collection

I love collections. It’s one of the reasons I enjoy Diablo III so much, especially for that bestiary. MultiVersus feeds my craving for collections with a character section where you can check everyone’s bio. I suspect the developer will add more to the roster when more characters become available in the future.

Of course, you need to unlock the characters to have them as part of the collection. As you play matches and win games, you’ll earn in-game coins that you can use to buy heroes or villains. There’s also an option to purchase them with Gleamium, which you need to spend real money on to obtain. You can start to see how MultiVersus favors those who don’t mind spending cash on game content.

Cross-platform mayhem

A few years ago, hearing that a game is cross-platform would have blown our minds. Today, it’s almost as commonplace as Batman in a Warner Bros game featuring D.C characters. Still, I love the idea that you can challenge players on any platform, as it had me on my PC facing my children on the PlayStation 4 in matches that had us laughing until our bellies hurt.

How long to play MultiVersus?

As I mentioned, there’s no story campaign. All we have at the moment is the pre-season Battle Pass. There’s no indication as yet as to how long a Battle Pass season will last, and you can keep playing MultiVersus until your fingers go numb. The more you play, the more you wrack up the levels and coins.

Defeating your enemies in MultiVersus

Alright, let’s move to the more exciting part of my MultiVersus review: the combat and gameplay. Here’s the real meat of the game that has everyone excited and battling each other out.

Creating your profile on MultiVersus

If it’s your first time on MultiVersus, you’ll be asked to either sign in to a Warner Bros. account or create a new one. The process is the same on PC and console, with one slight difference. On the Windows version, you need to indicate what your age is, while the console will detect it from your device settings when you created your Avatar and account.

Can you change your age on MultiVersus?

If you want to change your age on MultiVersus for some reason, you’ll need to reset your account on PC to make that possible or create a new one. On console, it means changing your age in the system settings.

Learning how to play MultiVersus

As soon as you’ve created your account and then a profile, you’ll head straight to the first tutorial. Here, you’ll face Wonder Woman while learning how to kick, hit, jump, and climb up the sides of the walls. Yes, even Shaggy is able to perform this move, even though he’s afraid of monsters most of the time in his universe.

When you’re done learning the ropes for MultiVersus, there are advanced tutorials for specialized moves that may just save your character’s life. I was so eager to jump into the action for this review that I skipped that entirely, and still won my first three matches. So I don’t deem them necessary.

Choosing your battle mode

Now that you’re in the thick of things, it’s time to get into the actual fights. MultiVersus has three modes at the time of this review:

1 versus 1
2 versus 2
Free for all

There are also practice modes with bots and custom matches. The names of the modes are self-explanatory, but there’s one extra thing I should mention. If you don’t enter a Ranked match, the chances are that you’ll end up fighting players with much higher levels than you. This might be where the advanced tutorials will come in handy, but I beat a level 18 with my level 2 character, anyway. So, maybe not.

Battle perks

One of the benefits of fighting and leveling up is that you unlock new battle perks. Each character can attach up to three perks before a fight, which gives you unique abilities and buffs to enhance your attacks. The issue is, that everyone can attach perks, even your opponents, and you won’t know which ones they selected until the pre-selection screen ends.

Your heroes and villains also level up as you use them, gaining experience with each fight. That means you’ll receive perks that are relevant to the specific character. For the most part, you won’t be able to use those abilities with anyone else, so playing with every character has its pros.

Setting the stage

You know how long it took you to get to this stage of the MultiVersus review to finally read about the fighting aspect of the game? That’s how it feels when you start it for the first time. Going through all the aforementioned elements had me thinking, “Am I going to get to fight at some stage?”

Personal thoughts aside, you’re finally in a match. What I love about the maps and arenas is that they take scenes from each character’s universe, which I’ll touch on more a bit later. The battle stage consists of platforms that you can jump on and off while fighting. The main aim is to keep damage to your character low, highly damage your opponents, and eventually hit them off the stage.

Combat mechanics

You’ll notice that each character has a number under them. In a reverse-health sort of way, the numbers go up every time the hero or villain is struck. The higher that number becomes, the less you’ll be able to dodge and the further you go flying when someone hits you. That means you’re more likely to go soaring through the sky and off the screen.

There are different ways to attack your enemy. There’s the basic hit, special hit, dodge, and jump. While you may think that a good strategy and combos will help you, they won’t. The screen becomes such chaos at times with players all over the place, you’ll spend a lot of your time hitting and hoping for the best. Powering up your strike is more of an invitation for your enemy to hit you at that time than actually delivering a powerful blow.

Making friends on MultiVersus

There’s one aspect of MultiVersus that I can’t deny: it’s good for making friends. Even if someone kicks your cartoon butt during every rematch, it’s still fun sending and receiving friend requests so you can team up next time. The social panel shows you which of your Steam or PlayStation friends are online, and you can also invite them to download and play the game.

Similar games to MultiVersus

Brawling games like MultiVersus aren’t a new concept. We’ve had quite a few of these appear over the years. All Warner Bros are really doing is cashing in on a popular game genre with brand names they own. At this point, I don’t get what all the fuss is about. It’s another brawling game, with WB faces and a Battle Pass system to take your money.

Now that I have that out of my system, other brawling games you can give a try if this is your thing includes Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl, Brawlhalla, and Gang Beasts.

What you’ll need on your PC

You won’t have to worry about heavy performance requirements for MultiVersus just yet. While we’re still in the infant phase, there aren’t too many characters or maps. However, you can expect these numbers to grow as the game upgrades.

OS: Windows 10 64-bit
Processor: Intel Core i5-2300 / AMD FX-8350
Graphics: GeForce GTX 550 Ti / Radeon HD 7770
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Storage: About 5 GB at the time of review

Familiar faces, places, and sounds

In this final part of my MultiVersus review, I’ll take a look at some of the more fun aspects, namely, the graphics and sounds. It should come as no surprise that seeing these familiar faces and sceneries is the main appeal behind the game.

Heroes and villains galore

What was it that got so many players excited about MultiVersus? The heroes and villains! Yes, sure, many gamers out there just love brawling games anyway, but I bet many are first-timers who’ve never experienced this genre of fighting game before.

To be honest, I’m one of those who picked specific characters just to see what moves they can pull off and how they fight. I had a good chuckle at Shaggy picking up a sandwich and throwing it in Batman’s face. As for the character designs, the developers did a great job with the visuals and effects.

Stunning environments

I also loved the various maps and arenas, especially with how they’re tied to the character’s universe. You can even fight in the Bat Cave or the manor, while there’s also a map for Bugs Bunny. Each environment has beautiful visuals, but you may be too busy fighting to notice them.

Classic sounds with brilliant voice acting

With the familiar faces are also the classic sounds and voices that accompany them. Batman’s voice is more from the animated shows, so don’t expect a gruff Christian Bale tone. During the battle, the punches and powers take the show as far as sound effects go, but there’s also battle music playing in the background.

Final Verdict of MultiVersus

You may have seen there’s a mixed opinion from me on Multiversus in this review. While I may have played brawling games before, it’s just not my cup of tea. Sure, I enjoyed seeing D.C. and other WB characters on the screen, but that’s about the height of the excitement for me. There’s nothing pulling me back to play more, like Elder Scrolls Online or Car Mechanic Simulator 2021.

That doesn’t mean it isn’t a good game, though. It has plenty of potentials, and I’m sure gamers that love this genre will go mad playing it all day long and leveling up. There’s definitely entertainment value in it, and I recommend you give it a go. When Harry Potter characters join the mix, I’ll be back to give it another try. I want to see Hermione whip out her wand and Wingardium Leviosa some players.

If you’d like to read articles on games I have enjoyed more, be sure to check out my Mirror Forge preview and Dune: Spice Wars preview.

Pros

Familiar heroes and villains
A collections library
Good at making friends
Cross-play
Several online modes
A tier reward system
Level up perks

Cons

No story mode
Microtransactions give an edge to buyers
Battles can become confusing

Developer: Player First Games

Publisher: Warner Bros. Games

Game Modes: Various multiplayer modes, such as 1v1, 2v2, Free for all, custom, practice

Platform reviewed: Windows 11 – Steam; PlayStation 4

Best beginner characters in MultiVersus for new players

The fighting game smashes together characters from all over animation — but not all of them are the best beginner characters in MultiVersus. Though the game has familiar mechanics, everyone has to start somewhere, right?

Dive in with a little insider knowledge to see which character playstyles work best for you. Let’s break down the best characters in MultiVersus for beginners.

For the best beginner characters in MultiVersus, start with Shaggy

Cost: 1500 Gold or 700 Gleamium

The hapless Scooby Doo investigator really brings it on the battlefield. Categorized as a bruiser type, Shaggy excels at getting in your face and retreating quickly. You can put down lots of damage with his basic attack alone. In tandem with his “Zoinks!” ability, you’ll do even more damage and you can heal others by throwing them sandwiches.

If you want to get a feel for the game physics, the maps, and how the game handles overall, beginners should try Shaggy first. Unfortunately, Shaggy does not start out as an unlocked character.