“MultiVersus” the free fighting video game that pits characters from DC Comics, Looney Tunes and Game of Thrones against each other

Two months after a popular, if sometimes difficult, testing period, “MultiVersus” had its official launch this May 28. The title that brings together characters owned by Warner Bros. such as Batman and Bugs Bunny will seek to find its place in the competitive fighting game market.

El Comercio had the opportunity to test the title in advance and speak with Ian Rapoport, designer at Player First Games, who expressed his excitement about the official release of the project. “We feel great. “We are really excited to be able to put all the changes and updates we made into the hands of players,” he stated.

There are reasons to be so, as there have been great advances between the version that around 20 million players were able to try in 2022, including improvements in its ‘netcode’ to reduce the lag of their online games, the inclusion of new characters, the implementation of additional progression systems to keep its users immersed and a PVE (player vs. environment) game mode called “Rifts”.

What is “MultiVersus”?

“MultiVersus” is a free-to-play fighting video game that crosses over several Warner Bros. franchises such as DC Comics, “Rick and Morty,” Looney Tunes and more. In terms of gameplay, the title is more similar to “Super Smash Bros.”, with a simplified combat system where, in addition to regular actions such as moving, jumping and dodging, there are also two attack buttons – regular and special – whose Effects are modified depending on directional commands.

In another similarity to the Nintendo franchise, “MultiVersus” does not aim to reduce the enemy’s health bar to 0, but rather to throw your opponents off the screen. Although dealing damage to opponents is also important, as it determines how far you can send them with your hits.

Fissures

Rifts present perhaps the most interesting new addition to the game, providing players with an option that avoids the stress of competitive modes with scenarios in which they will face alone – or with a partner – a series of challenges against the computer in return. of a wide variety of prizes such as new costumes and other cosmetics.

In the version of “MultiVersus” we tested there were only two scenarios available titled “Multiversal Chaos!” and “Fissure Detectives,” each telling a simple story that revolved around a particular character, in this case the Joker (DC Comics) and Velma (“Scooby Doo”) respectively. As you would expect from a fighting game, much of the progression in this mode consists of defeating various enemy fighters, although a variety of mini-games were also included such as shooting galleries and defending a crystal while piloting a tank-style tank. “Gunbound” game.

For Rapoport, Rifts were a way to add new and exciting ways to play “MultiVersus” without having to worry as much about competitive balance. This is seen in the inclusion of Gems in this mode, powerful accessories that improve certain skills or statistics of your characters, which are exclusive to PVE mode.

“These wouldn’t be as successful in a competitive situation, but they give a lot of room to create crazy mods that we think players will be happy to try without having to worry about them being balanced or anything like that,” Rapoport said.

PvP y ‘rollback netcode’

Despite the importance of Rifts, the main game mode of “MultiVersus” continues to be combat between players. At the moment, the game retains two game modes, which are one-versus-one fights (1v1) and two-player team duels (2v2). In our experience, both game modes are entertaining, but it’s the more chaotic 2v2 mode that makes the most of the “MultiVerse” type of combat.

A game with a large online component like this lives or dies by the amount of lag experienced when playing online and there is certainly nothing more frustrating during a game than seeing our seemingly accurate attacks fail to connect or we take hits. ghosts’ simply by not having the best connection with our opponent. This is a big problem, especially in the fighting game genre, and it was presented during the first beta of “MultiVersus” a couple of years ago.

The complaints were such that fixing it was one of Player First Games’ priorities during the lead-up to launch. Their solution was to base their online experience on ‘rollback netcode,’ a method of implementing online games used by titles like “Street Fighter 6” and “Mortal Kombat 1” that reduces lag by predicting players’ actions to give the appearance of a more fluid game. This solution apparently worked for them and our experience with the current version of the title was quite pleasant in that regard, being able to play without problems with opponents not only in the Americas, but also from other continents such as Europe and Africa.

New characters

“MultiVersus” features a cast of 26 characters brought in from different Warner Bros. properties, mostly mixing DC Comics superheroes and villains with crazy cartoon characters like “Looney Tunes,” “Rick and Morty,” “Scooby Doo” and “Steven Universe”. The game also uses less famous properties like The Iron Giant or non-animated franchises like “Game of Thrones,” “Gremlin,” and even Jason from “Friday the 13th.”

During our time with the game, we found all of the characters we tried to be interesting, managing to maintain the difficult balance of retaining their distinctive characteristics, as well as being fun enough to use. For example, Rick from “Rick and Morty” had his distinctive teleportation device, Jake from “Adventure Time” fought using his polymorphisms to transform his limbs into different shapes, and Bugs Bunny carried implements with lethal precision such as safes and explosives, objects that we have seen them use countless times in their classic cartoons.

More difficult than confirming fidelity to the source material was determining whether the game was unbalanced to the advantage of some fighters, something that also caused complaints in the beta, although in our experience it didn’t feel like one of the characters was significantly more powerful than another. For now, Player First Games has noted that it has used the time before launch to put fighters “in a space that they think is healthier for the game” and that this work will continue throughout the life of the game.

Here is the list of all the fighters available to date:

• Arya (Game of Thrones)
• Banana Guard (Adventure Time)
• Batman (DC Comics)
• Black Adam (DC Comics)
• Bugs Bunny (Looney Tunes)
• Cachorreno (Player First Games)
• Joker / The Joker (DC Comics)
• Finn (Adventure Time)
• Garnet (Steven Universe)
• Iron Giant (The Iron Giant)
• Gizmo (Gremlins)
• Harley Quinn (DC Comics)
• Jake (Adventure Time)
• Jason (Friday the 13th)
• LeBron James (Space Jam: A New Era)
• Marvin the Martian (Looney Tunes)
• Morty (Rick y Morty)
• Wonder Woman (DC Comics)
• Rayita (Gremlins)
• Rick (Rick y Morty)
• Shaggy (Scooby Doo)
• Steven Universe (Steven Universe)
• Superman (DC Comics)
• Taz/The Tazmanian Devil (Looney Tunes)
• Tom y Jerry (Tom y Jerry)
• Velma (Scooby Doo)

It should be noted that like many Free-to-play games, “MultiVersus” does not give access to all the fighters from the beginning, but rather these have to be acquired by the user in various ways. The quickest and easiest is using a premium – read paid – currency called Glemium, although the game also offers other ways to get the new characters such as buying them with coins that are acquired by playing the video game and, in the particular case of Jason, the version Battle Pass payment. Outside of this, “MultiVersus” the player can use a series of test characters, a selection that changes from time to time (we assume weekly).

Is it worth playing?

For our part, we found “MultiVersus” to be a competent installment of the fighting genre. The combat system seems simple at first glance and certainly does not require the technical ability of games like “Street Fighter” or “Tekken”, but this same simplicity of performing the movements allows the player to concentrate on other aspects of combat such as combos, dodging and maintaining the ideal combat distance.

And while it is true that one cannot help but compare “MultiVersus” to “Super Smash Bros.,” its closest and most successful rival in this type of fighting game, the Player First Games title presents enough mechanical and selection differences. of fighters to deserve their own place at the table. It certainly deserves to be tried by fans of the genre.

“MultiVersus” was released on May 28 on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC (Steam and Epic Games Store).