Despite early bugs that made PVP unplayable, Multiversus Season 1 shaped up to be a solid re-release of the free-to-play platform fighter.
Multiversus is a 2D, platform fighter which sees characters from various Warner Brothers properties including but not limited to DC, Adventure Time, Steven Universe, and Scooby Doo, duking it out across the Multiverse. The game originally launched in Open Beta on July 26th, 2022 it would then later be shut down on June 25th, 2023 as the developers want to restructure the game in an effort to make the experience more enjoyable for players in early 2024.
Many months passed with nothing but radio silence from the team, leading fans to lose hope for the game’s relaunch, however, on March 11th, 2024, a developer update detailing all the changes to the game and its relaunch date of May 28th, 2024 starting with an all new Season 1 titled “Puns & Villainy” which lasted until July 22nd, 2024. With this season coming to a close, it’s time to give my thoughts on the (second) first season of Multiversus.
I began playing from the Open Beta and the game had me hooked. The thought of playing as my favorite Warner Bros. characters instantly appealed to me and I made a great effort to log on daily in order to experience everything Multiversus had to offer.
The same goes for the relaunch which made both some exciting and questionable changes, while my love for the game remains the same I must admit that not everything is perfect.
Concerning combat, the first week saw me struggling to get into PVP matches; numerous “connection lost” errors discouraged me at first especially when I had missions locked to that gamemode. It’s only later that I discovered that matches worked during the night hours which while I managed to hop on at the time, it’s less than ideal. Fortunately, this was rectified later on and I could get into matches easily. I noticed that the combat felt slow, characters were not as swift as I remembered which became a bit of a learning curve. At times I also felt that the enemy’s moves were given priority over mine, I was unable to damage the enemy as a result.
These bugs pushed me to try out the new PVE mode titled “Rifts” (was this their plan all along?) which felt great at the time, the Rifts mode added a bit of lore to the game (unfortunately without voice acting), something which was missing in the Open Beta. Additionally, each stage in PVE had a few challenges and difficulties encouraging replayability but I would soon learn how difficult it felt to experience these new difficulties. One of the main features of Rifts were “Gems”; these provided various buffs to your characters and served as one of the grinding aspects of the mode which I would later learn to be a tough chore provided you did not want to use the premium currency, Gleamium. Despite playing the game almost daily I’m still unable to face the final difficulty, Looney, so you can only imagine what it must feel like for players who can’t play consistently.
Multiversus also featured a number of limited time events to keep players engaged, the events were all varied, some requiring players to simply log in daily, completing a number of missions to earn points for various rewards in the form of a “mini pass” (an event format they would use often), and some required you to participate in PVP matches to climb a leaderboard. The last one being the “Top Dog Challenge” which I wasn’t a huge fan of because it required you to put in a lot of time which sometimes felt impossible. These events offered rewards such as Battlepass XP, Perk Currency, Fighter Currency, Gleamium and Skins.
The choice to split gold into different currencies hasn’t affected me to a drastic degree having unlocked most perks and fighters from the Open Beta, however, I do wish that there were some cosmetics that could be purchased without Gleamium, while some skins are given for free through the events they often lack anything that makes them unique. They often alter only a small part of the character’s appearance for example; Shark Hats, Hockey Masks and the Matrix Code. The skins and cosmetics that truly felt unique were available for gold in the Open Beta but now cost Gleamium.
Prestige Currency is an addition that I quite like, it’s earned by owning various cosmetics and the value is determined by the rarity of said cosmetic. With these you can earn special cosmetics such as a Joker skin and Announcer Pack for The Batman Who Laughs.
The new fighters all have their quirks that make them stand out from each other. I enjoyed playing each of them with the exception of Agent Smith who I was hoping to unlock through the Rift event which I was unable to complete. Joker was especially important being the first Mage class character from DC however, Banana Guard was a bit disappointing joining Jake The Dog as a Bruiser class, I had hoped for them to be a Tank as the Adventure Time category is lacking a Tank and Mage. But there is hope, with season 1 adding four characters it could become a standard amount with ongoing seasons.
The one thing I haven’t touched on yet is the UI. The game takes massive inspiration from Fortnite which wasn’t a bad thing for myself as a player of that game as well but it is very noticeable in most pages. The fighter screen was one I wasn’t pumped about, the character icons were just lifeless 3D models at first, however, Player First Games listened to the community and brought back the hand drawn, 2D icons.
Overall, I’ve had an acceptable experience with the first season, season two is shaping up to be even better with Player First Game’s commitment to improving the experience even more alongside two fighter reveals and the arrival of the ranked mode. All of which I am eagerly awaiting tomorrow.
Multiversus is developed by Player First Games and available for free on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series, Xbox One, and PC (via Steam or the Epic Games Store).
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