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MultiVersus Preview: Hands-on with Warner Bros’ polished moneymaker

There's a lot of good... and a lot that could be bad.

MultiVersus is the latest in a long line of Super Smash Bros clones, following Sony’s own (failed) attempt in PlayStation All-Stars and coming in ahead of the newly announced LEGO Brawls. Days before its closed alpha, Stevivor was provided hands-on access to the title, so here’s what we think of it.

While nothing will ever truly be able to capture the magic that Nintendo has exhibited with the OG, Warner Bros is making a valiant attempt thanks to ownership of IP including DC, Scooby-Doo, Adventure Time, Game of Thrones, Looney Toones and more. Like that list of IP may read to you, MultiVersus can be solid at times and worrisome at others.

Developed by Player First Games, MultiVersus is a free to play arena fighter that will pit player versus player in 1v1, 2v2 or four-player free-for-all matches. Set on stages that reflect its roster of characters — Batman’s Batcave as the easiest example — the objective is rather simple. Using regular, charged and special attacks alongside supers, projectiles, aerial jumps and dodges and the like, you’re to beat other players senseless and eventually knock them out of bounds.

If you knock other players off more than you’re knocked off, you win. Mostly. MultiVersus employes an optional best of three mode; immediately after the first match has concluded, players can opt into a rematch or simply break the squad up to find another match.

Ats core, MultiVersus is great fun, as chaotic as the OG arena brawler it aims to be. Characters have their own unique abilities and fall into a number of categories. While the likes of both Shaggy and Batman are bruisers, the latter has more vertical attacks while the former is considered a hybrid character. Wonder Woman and Superman are (rightfully) tanks, though Wonder Woman is more a horizontal attacker compared to Supes’ hybrid options. Bugs Bunny and Tom and Jerry are somehow mages (who knew?) while Arya Stark and Harley Quinn are assassins.

No matter the character you play, it’s really a matter of trying out all their directional attacks, specials and the like, and then knowing when to use them in an actual battle. If you need to be up close and personal to hit someone, sitting halfway across the stage won’t help.

While its roster offers more heavy hitters than the likes of PlayStation All-Stars (at the time it was released, admittedly), MultiVersus still has to scrape the bottom of the Warner Bros barrel to round things out. Do kids today actually know what Looney Tunes is? Or for that matter, do older people know what Adventure Time or Steven Universe is? Well, maybe the oldies do if they have kids. I digress; the real anomaly here is that I sat around for about twenty minutes trying to realise which property a character called Reindog was from before realising its a character of Player First, not tied to any actual Warner vehicle. The lack of a Mortal Kombat character like Scorpion (as per THAT Shaggy meme) also makes little to no sense; hopefully a future announcement is coming.

Regardless, the stranger thing here is that Reindog is an absolute beast, and a perfect example of the lasso-like mechanic that is key to success in MultiVersus. While the likes of Batman and Wonder Woman have access to a tether of sorts via their grappling hook and lasso of truth, Reindog has an actual tether, one that will connect it with other characters. Connected to its partner, opponents that are caught inside the tether are dealt passive damage. Better yet, the tether can sometimes save one of the two connected players from falling of a stage’s edge. Death, avoided.

Playing for only a couple days, it’s hard to gauge how balanced the characters are. A lot of the humans involved in the early access period offered to Stevivor decided to team Reindog with an assassin-type character for some reason, but I was finding that singling out one of the two opponents that me and a second player were pitted against made for an easy win. No one seems too overpowered (though I’d put Shaggy in that category), and there’s nothing that you can’t learn to counter when it’s attempted on you time after time after time.

I originally thought Batman was a bit of a dud before I realised that his regular attack without direction — his batarang — could be paired with his special without direction — a bomb — for some combined, hilarious damage. Down and special with Batman also releases a cloud of smoke whilst on the ground, letting Bat fans live out their wildest fantasties.

Like everything out nowadays, MultiVersus is all about the stuff around the edges. A Battle Pass in paid and premium flavours will help to unlock profile icons, backgrounds, character perks, in-game currency and more, while matches will pay off in both XP and coins as well. Characters have their own levelling system, with higher levels opening up even more options like perk training.

MultiVersus is free-to-play but certainly after your hard-earned. I doled out congratulationary toasts to my opponents after my first online match before realising they were all I had in my inventory; in my second match, I was notified that I could issue additional toasts at a cost of 25 in-game coins. Ugh.

I decided not to toast that second group of players (sorry ’bout that) as MultiVersus isn’t about to let you play with its full roster of characters without paying for them first. The likes of Batman, Superman and Arya Stark are locked behind 2,000 coin paywalls — each — which mean you’ll have to keep playing — or, spending — to earn the right to use them. After I saved up enough — and that took a while, to be honest — I bought Batman and levelled him up with experience and XP boosts obtained in the Battle Pass before realising the game wanted me to spend more coins to beef up his perks.

Conveniently enough (for Player First and Warner Bros), the in-game shop wasn’t available for the playtest, meaning I have no idea what extra skins or character unlocks will cost you if you decide to use real-world money. That’s the beginnings of a red flag.

In my experience, playing matches will earn you anywhere between 0-360 coins. On the upper end, I managed 360 in the second consecutive round of a best of two match, paired with not only a level up bonus on my profile but a first win bonus for the day. On the lower end, I needed one taunt to unlock a timed daily challenge so performed one and then threw myself off the edge twice in a row. MultiVersus picked up on that and essentially dinged me for a “short match”. On one hand, I get it; on the other, yuck.

In short, MultiVersus is highly polished and super fun when playing actual matches. It’s the stuff around it — the stuff that wants your cash — that has me a little uncomfortable. Hopefully those concerns will be alleviated soon. For now, you can look before if you want to check out some gameplay in action.

MultiVersus heads to Windows PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, PS4 and PS5 sometime in 2022. A closed alpha is on now and an open beta will follow in July.

MultiVersus was previewed using a promotional code on Xbox Series X, as provided by the publisher.


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About the author

Steve Wright

Steve's the owner of this very site and an active games journalist nearing twenty (TWENTY!?!) years. He's a Canadian-Australian gay gaming geek, ice hockey player and fan. Husband to Matt and cat dad to Wally and Quinn.