This Isn’t Rabbit Season Anymore – Multiversus Re-Launch Information Revealed

When Bugs Bunny put up his dukes to beat up Steven Universe in Multiversus back in July 2022, many loved their time with the open beta.

The Super Smash Bros. inspired fighters collected franchises across Warner Bothers to duke it out. Whenever you fought in teams of two or one-on-one, the game offered a unique spin on the platform-fighters genre.

Now set for an official launch as a free-to-play title on May 28th, 2024, Player First Games revealed major details for the full release. Battle Pass details, new fighters, and more are on the way.

MultiVersus Launch Trailer

Leaning into the crossover nature, the trailer sees characters across the Warner banner fighting across iconic locations. From Finn and Jake Tree House from Adventure Time to an arena taken directly from Game of Thrones, mayhem ensures. That is not helped by the recently revealed Joker, Jason, and Agent Smith beginning to fight an army of heroes.

Trailer Breakdown

As a huge fan of animation, one could easily see a ton of cameos and potential character inclusions in this trailer. When Finn and Velma team up to fight Bugs Bunny, they hit the Warner Tower. Said tower, is the home of the Animaniacs, and popping out of it are various items.

Bubbles plushie from the Powerpuff Girls, a broom (which could be a reference either to Wizard of Oz or Harry Potter) and even Jack’s sword (Samurai Jack). Another new location, the City of Townsville, also is revealed as a playable stage. In addition, Dexters (Dexters Laboratory) is in the background as Cake the Cat (Adventure Time) and Marvin the Martian (Loony Tunes) duke it out.

The trailer then pans to Wonder Woman, who is fighting variants of herself based on both comic and film appearances she’s been in. While she’s fighting, Rick Sanchez appears out of a portal. What’s noteworthy is how he has new dialog. In the open beta, both he and Morty used lines from the show. With both Rick and Morty having original dialog, the potential for hysterical banter is limitless.

Rick jumps through various stages (Batcave, a Scooby Doo haunted mansion, and the Adventure Time tree house), giving a brief reminder of battlefields present in the open beta.

Launch Roster

The launch roster of fighters is as follows, as reported by IGN;

Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Harley Quinn, Black Adam, and The Joker (DC); Shaggy and Velma (Scooby-Doo); Bugs Bunny, Tasmanian Devil a.k.a. Taz, and Marvin the Martian (Looney Tunes); Arya Stark (Game of Thrones); Tom & Jerry (Tom and Jerry); Finn the Human, Jake the Dog, and Banana Guard (Adventure Time); Steven Universe and Garnet (Steven Universe); Iron Giant (The Iron Giant), LeBron James (Space Jam: A New Legacy); Rick Sanchez and Morty Smith (Rick and Morty); Gizmo and Stripe (Gremlins); Jason Voorhees (Friday the 13th); Agent Smith (The Matrix); and an “extraordinary original creature” named Reindog.

Worth noting that Agent Smith won’t be part of the base roster, joining the fight later in the season (which is headlined by both Joker and Jason).

Rumored Fighters

Taken from data-mines in the Open and Closed Betas, speculation on other fighters joining the rosters is high. The full list includes characters like Static Shock, Harry Potter, and King Kong. You can see the full leaked list of potential fighters in Screen Rant’s report covering the game.

It’s Adventure Time! – Multiversus Gameplay Improvements & Modes

During the lead-up to launch, Player First Games released multiple blog updates going over changes coming to the game.

Combat Improvement

Player First Games have said the following;

From seasoned vets to brand new players, the combat in MultiVersus needs to make sense for players of all skill levels. From a combat philosophy perspective, we always want to make sure MultiVersus combat rewards smart, well timed, calculated play in a fun, engaging and fluid way. During Open Beta, MultiVersus prioritized combat that was flexible and snappy, emphasizing the moment-to-moment combat encounters. We loved the fluidity of that combat, but we wanted to equally reward more strategic play without removing the fluidity. While our evolved combat prioritizes more strategic and “neutral” play, we feel that these changes for our launch still preserve the soul of MultiVersus combat while evolving it in a positive direction.

These changes included larger character models, a new dash attack, and a rebuilt net-code. A major part of this is due to a shift from UE4 to UE5. Performance (stable 60FPS at a high resolution) should be expected, as that was the case during the closed and open betas.

Rifts Mode

Revealed in a recent trailer, the developer has said the following about the mode;

Rifts Mode is a way for all players to play MultiVersus and progress their skills, outside of our competitive PVP modes. Each Rift will have a sequence of battles or challenges around a particular theme, whether it’s The Joker infiltrating the Batcave or Batman and Velma teaming up to decide who’s the best detective. These themes will be organized around seasonal “Attunements,” such as Chaos, for the Clown Prince of Crime that is joining our cast in season 1. The same way every MultiVersus battle is bubbling with character interactions, we wanted to make each Rift “Uniquely MultiVersus”, every season.

The trailer itself breaks everything down quite nicely, which you can watch below.

Essentially, it’s the title’s answer to a mission mode or campaign present in games like Smash Brothers, offering a variety of modes to play when offline or with a buddy. Progress in this mode also leads to progression in other places, such as currency for cosmetics and characters.

Don’t Eat After Midnight – Season Pass and Progression

Regarding how the battle pass will function, the developer stated the following;

We have something special for all players who complete the new tutorial… a seven-day reward calendar that will allow you to unlock a new character – Banana Guard from Adventure Time – at launch, for free! If that wasn’t a-peeling enough, if you complete all seven days of this reward calendar, you can also pick up the Lady Banana Guard character variant. We hope everyone has as much fun playing with Banana Guard as the team had designing them.

In addition, returning players with a WB account can get the first season pass for free, which is linked to unlocking Jason and other cosmetic rewards.

We’ve increased the number of high-value items in both the free and premium tiers by adding more ringouts, character variants, taunts, and currency. You can also now earn premium currency (Gleamium) through both tiers, which can be used on many different in-game items, whether it’s for new characters or saving to use towards the next season’s premium Battle Pass.

So overall, it seems that Player First Games is ready for a proper rollout of their monetization model. This is a make-or-break element for many live service games, so making pricing fair and a proper rollout of content is critical.

Round Two… Fight! – Closing Thoughts on Multiversus

I played the Open Beta when it was released, as a huge fan of Warner’s animation and DC Comics output. Seeing legends like Bugs Bunny fighting Batman is a dream come true and the core gameplay systems were very fun.

But progression elements were concerning, due to the fact you still had to ‘buy’ the characters. Thankfully, progress made during the beta will carry over for those who spent money. But when games in this space typically give you the roster and make you pay for cosmetic skins instead, I am curious to see how Player First Games sticking to their current model will pan out.

If the studio and Warner Brothers can nail this, both companies have a massive hit on their hands. The roster of IP underneath Warner Brothers is vast and full of fun characters across mediums. And what makes Multiversus special is how everyone is interacting with each other.

This is not common in platform fighters, with the last one to embrace that element being PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royal two generations ago. And honestly, more platform fighters from major IP owners are always welcome in my book.

Expect impressions on the full release and more from Lords of Gaming in the future!