The MultiVersus game has been in closed beta since 19th July, gaining access by purchasing your way in with one of the founders packs, or being given an invite to play within the closed beta.
Well, yesterday MultiVersus opened it’s doors to the public via an Open Beta (26th July) and is a free-to-play title set to launch fully August 9th, and is available to download on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, PS5 & PC.
Gameplay
As someone who isn’t a massive fighting game fan and hasn’t indulged much in the genre since the old Mortal Kombat or Dead or Alive games, I wasn’t sure MultiVersus would be a game for me. However, after around 6 hours playtime within the public beta, I can say, I do not want to put my controller down!
Now, whilst the aforementioned games were great for their time, MultiVersus sticks out straight away as more of a Smash Bros clone (a fighting game I think I’ve spent all of about 15 minutes ever with).
Whether my lack of Smash Bros knowledge serves for better or worse going into MultiVersus, I can safely say I’m having a brilliant time with it.
You can play 1v1 modes, 2v2, 4 player FFA and of course a co-op Vs AI mode if you feel like hashing it out against some poor bots. There is also a beginner tutorial to help you learn the ropes and more advanced tutorials available, to help you master those ropes! Not forgetting you have a custom games option too!
Of course, with any game new to yourself, you can’t expect to pick up the controller and be the best in the world within the first minute, but it doesn’t take you long to learn the ropes, and breeze past the rather small learning curve, which is a massive help, and aids the leap, to what can only be described as a whole heap of fun, served up within the gameplay. Special moves, wacky animations, it’s all here and it’s good fun!
Within MultiVersus, you have perks you gradually earn through levelling up, which can be applied to your character. These perks even stack up percentages of effectiveness, if you and your partner both select the same perks, which is cool feature.
Characters/Party System
MultiVersus has a generous roster of 17 characters “available” to you upon download. Some of these include the likes of Shaggy, Taz, Superman, The Iron Giant and yes, Lebron James! With Rick & Morty due to join the MultiVersus roster with the launch of season 1!
How the roster works, is that you have 17 characters, of which only 4 of them are available at anyone time for you to select. With Wonder Woman being a permanent unlock upon completion of the beginners tutorial, which I suggest everyone put themselves through before jumping into those online brawls.
You can use any of the 4 characters available and earn gold coins, then in turn use these coins to unlock the characters you want on a permanent basis. For instance, I was using Shaggy until around level 7 when I got an update for the game, locking him out of rotation, so spend those coins wisely!
If you choose to party up with a partner for some brilliant 2v2 action, you’ll be rewarded with 30% extra gold and XP on top of your earnings. One of the great features this game has, is that if you happen to be playing 2v2’s mode solo, the game will automatically pair you up with your random partner upon completion of a rematch, which is nice if you find another random player you work well with. Of course, you can opt out/turn off this automatic party feature if it’s not for you.
Battle Pass
I’m usually worried about the term “Battle Pass” as we all know it can mean that the “coolest” stuff is locked behind a paywall that can typically cost you around £10. Here however, the battle pass is a measly “300 Gleamium” which equates to just under £3.
A lot cheaper than most battle passes you say? There’s a reason for that. This seasons battle pass runs from 19/7 – 8/8, which is just under 3 weeks, and the pass only contains 15 tiers. Meaning 15 rewards or 30 rewards if you do choose to put up the £3 ish for entry, earning both rewards from the free and premium tiers.
The disappointing part of this battle pass is they seem to have taken the Halo Infinite route and tied BP progression, to daily missions ranging from performing a certain attack a number of times or getting a certain amount of wins/ring outs. The seasonal missions are even more demanding depending on personal time, backlog and how much time you have spare to put into the game.
For example, one of my challenges is to win 25 matches as a mage class character for progression towards the battle pass. Meaning, I’m having to play a certain way I may not enjoy, just to earn a cosmetic item, badge or banner etc, akin to Halo Infinite.
At the moment it doesn’t seem to egregious however, but we’re still in beta, So what they do with this game and where they take it remains to be seen.
Impression
Multiversus is great fun and it’s free-to-play. If you can get access to this game on your preferred platform, I don’t see any reason why not to download it and give it a bash, no money is lost if it doesn’t click with you, just a little bit of time.
We’ll have to wait and see where Warner Bros takes MultiVersus, but as of right now, I definitely recommend jumping in for a good brawl. Anyway, I’m off to make Shaggy throw sandwiches at people, see you later!