Multiversus is a fighting game from Warner Bros. I’ve followed the game since the original leaks back in… 2021? I played it when it was launched into beta in 2022, and continued to play the “open beta” until it was shut down in 2023. Now a year later, the game was finally relaunched, bringing with it a lot of changes; some good, some bad. In this post I’d like to go over my experience with the game, both from the relaunched version and what I remember of the beta. This will be a bit different from my regular reviews as I’ll be going through each item in a list as opposed to following a red line through the review.

• “Open Beta”
  • The first point of contention is just some terminology. The Multiversus that was available in 2022-2023 was labeled as an “open beta”. Sure, the 2024 version is vastly different from that version and is the self-proclaimed final version, but I don’t want to call the “open beta” an open beta. The game had been released, they ran multiple seasons, ran events, released new content, and most importantly, they had a functional store. I’ve never heard a beta last for a year that wasn’t labeled Early Access. For all I know, the game was being run like any other live-service game. I believe the game was pulled because the game had lost most of its player base due to all the issues it had. If the players had stuck around, the game would’ve probably continued getting updates until it was shut down permanently. That’s just my impression though, so I’ll leave it at that.
• Gameplay
  • Menu - In the beta, the game used a cursor based UI, which was slow and tedious. I think it was possible to move around only using buttons, but I’m not sure. Thankfully the new UI is way more intuitive, but a few strange decisions were made alongside this change. Badges are used to track stats, but the new menu doesn’t show them and they can instead only be seen while loading a match while all players are ready (a total of around 5 seconds per match). Some options can be scrolled to despite there being no need, and some things you can scroll to should instead have its information displayed better. The new menu just looks like Fortnite to me, which I guess if it works for that why wouldn’t it work for this. In short, the new menu system is alright.
  • Gameplay - The gameplay is pretty fun. It's a platform fighter like Smash Bros, but replace Smash with Warner. You have both regular and special attacks in each direction, and a bunch of varied movesets. Unlike Smash Bros, the game runs at a slow pace, which usually makes it easier to react to what's happening. You also have an easier time maneuvering in the air, as you can not only double jump, but also use your up special twice, in addition to having almost full control in the air at all times, plus the edges of the stage stretch to the bottom of the screen. What this results in is a game where it's very hard to actually kill someone as they can almost always return to the stage before being flung off the edges of the screen. Instead of a shield there's a dodge maneuver, which also adds to your mobility options. The way it works feels flimsy to me, as it sometimes feels like no matter when you use the dodge, you will get hit by the attack you're dodging. I also want to point out the hitboxes, which for the most part feels small. It's most apparent to me with down attacks, which I can basically never hit any, no matter the character. Call that a skill issue, but I don't remember having this much trouble in Smash Bros.
• Characters
  • Variety - The overall selection is decent. The original beta roster was barebones, and while it’s still lackluster, some of the most important characters and series are now represented. There’s a decent enough variety in the series that are represented, but nowhere near what you’d expect. Still baffles me how obvious picks like Daffy haven’t been added yet, while Marvin the Martian has been available since the beta. That leads me to…
  • Tie-ins - Of the 28 characters currently confirmed, 2 of them are what I’d call tie-in characters. These characters are Black Adam and LeBron James. Black Adam was added around the time the Dwayne Johnson movie was released, and similarly, LeBron was added alongside the release of Space Jam 2. How these characters were added before The Joker is mind-boggling to me. Every roster needs a selection of deep-cut choices, but these weren’t the characters to choose in my opinion. And similarly…
  • Banana Guard - Why Banana Guard? Considering the potential scope of Multiversus, where we might see 100 characters from WB’s 1000 franchises, and considering the current roster I already described as lackluster, Banana Guard is potentially one of the worst inclusions. Sure, joke characters have always been a thing in fighting games, but Banana Guard is just a boring choice of a character. I will clarify that I haven’t seen Banana Guard as they appear in Adventure Time, but just based on their appearance here: The design is rather boring, and the same goes for their moveset. As for what could have replaced them, a quick suggestion from me is maybe Scrappy-Doo. He’s basically already a joke character, what with him being treated as a literal demon in the live-action Scooby Doo movies, so he’d fit that role like a glove. Sure, I’d be curious why he was added first over Scooby, but at least he’d work better as a joke character for me.
• Network / Online
  • Gameplay - Online play is awful. Every match I’ve played has been laggy to some degree, whether a brief freeze or being teleported somewhere I wasn’t. It’s not uncommon for me to lose connection for being desynchronized either. In some cases, the game even crashes. In short, it’s no fun to play online… and that’s bad when it’s all you do. The weirdest thing about this to me is that every video I’ve seen of the game played online seems to have had no issues, and since I usually don’t have problems this big when I play online in other games I don’t want to blame my internet, which makes me think they don’t have enough servers in or near Sweden where I live.
  • Battle Pass - 70 tiers, but you can only gain EXP from daily challenges. Not being able to make any progress in a day beyond the challenges makes it feel like there’s no point in playing once they’re done, effectively turning the game into a “to-do” list. (Since writing, you can now earn 10 BPXP for a win or 5 for a loss). Most of the character skins (aka the best rewards) are also locked until the latter half of the pass, because of course they are. Someone has done the math on how long it’ll take to complete the pass using the challenges, and you basically need to complete all the challenges from about 95% of the days the pass is active or something like that. That’s insane.
  • Events - As of writing, there are 4 active events. 3 of those have inconsistent end dates between the events menu and the event details. I’ve since come to learn it says “Open” until an event “ends” at the date listed in the event menu, then it switches over to “Claim” until the event is finally removed on the date specified in the event details. While most of the events are styled similarly to the battle pass menu, one is laid out like a story, making it a bit confusing to interact with. It can also be confusing to know what to do for an event at first. In general I think events should be cleaned up a bit, have a more unified design, and show your objective in an easier to understand way.
• Rifts
  • Missions - The missions range from being rather fun to just plain annoying. Some mission objectives require you to do something X amount of times, but there's no tracker displayed in game so you have to keep track yourself. Some missions are very straight-forward, and some rely on RNG. There’s even bonus stages, which can sometimes be completed without having to do anything. Those are neat, especially when you think of the…
  • Difficulty - The mode feels poorly balanced. You get badges that grant special effects, and these can level up. How much XP you can for them depends on which difficulty you’re playing on. There are multiple stories, of which each can be played in up to 5 different difficulty levels. As of writing, not all difficulties have been unlocked, but my experience with the unlocked ones are as follows: The first (easiest) one is easy, you don’t need anything special to defeat them. The second one is also easy, as your badges have yet to level up at the beginning of this difficulty. Enemies are tougher, but not by much. The third difficulty requires you to have level 4 badges, but even with level 7 badges, these missions can be difficult. I can’t imagine how much harder the coming difficulties will be, and at least one of them is supposed to have extra lives you can purchase for real money. It also opens at a later date that any other mode, and given the rewards you’ll be able to obtain from completing it, I’m confident they’re artificially restricting it in order to squeeze more money out of the player (unlock close to event end date, meaning players have a short amount of time to attempt this difficulty, and restrict extra lives, meaning the player needs to spend more to get more attempts). Predatory to an egregious degree.
  • Online only - Despite what it may seem at first, Rifts is an online mode, and with that comes drawbacks. Every problem I mentioned in “Online - Gameplay” applies to this mode, and sometimes they’re amplified and made worse. If you desync from a versus match, it’s not that big of a deal as you just move on to the next match and hope for the best. But in Rifts, if you desync when playing with a friend, there’s a high risk that missions won’t be marked as completed, and any challenges you completed in a match are lost, meaning you have to re-do them. Depending on the mission, this can be either mildly annoying or very annoying, but annoying nonetheless. It’s very easy to get disconnected or desynced, so it’s very annoying to play.
• Currency / Store
  • Gold in beta - In the beta, you could earn gold from completing missions, getting toasted, or just playing matches. You could spend gold on anything but character skins, so badges, icons, perks, characters, etc. With the full release they switched away from gold, splitting it into 3 different currencies: Fighter currency used to get characters, Perk currency used to get perks, and Prestige that gives you access to exclusive items. The gold you’d earned in the beta was only converted into Prestige. You did get various badges and banners depending on how much gold you earned in the beta, but no fighter currency. I myself had a bit over 13k gold at the end of the beta, 13k I could’ve used to gain some fighters, but because I didn’t know they’d be getting rid of gold I never got a chance to spend it. It’s extra annoying when you remember that they had an icon you could get for 50k, so imagine if you deliberately didn’t spend gold on fighters just to save up for that. At least I was just waiting on my preferred characters…Thanks for that.
  • Progression / What carried over - Since I played the beta, I had already made quite a bit of progress, but since I didn’t purchase anything I didn’t have much. I’d bought like 5 characters and acquired some skins via Game Pass Ultimate, but that was it. All my characters and skins returned, though unless my memory fails me I also owned Superman, who I don’t currently own. I’ve seen someone say they used to own Reindog but don’t anymore, so who knows. For account customization (banners, icons, etc) I can’t remember, but I used to use the Mystery Machine icon, which I no longer have access to. In other words, not everything carried over.
  • Prices - In the beta, a character cost anywhere between 1000 and 3000 gold. Now they cost 3000 fighter currency each, except The Joker who costs 6000(!). Using Gleamium, they each cost about 10 dollars, so for the price of 6 characters you could just as well buy Smash Ultimate for an overall better experience.

Conclusion: Multiversus is a game that has the potential of a good game hidden somewhere in it, but right now its buried under piles of problems in every aspect of its being that it’s hard to recommend to anyone. The game has improved somewhat since launch, but given the amount of critical problems it has, I wonder how much longer the game will be available. In the end, given the monetization of the game, you’re better off purchasing a Switch and a copy of Smash Ultimate.