Free-to-play fighting game MultiVersus, a game most simply described as “Smash Bros but it’s Warner Bros characters,” had a very strong launch day and is currently the third-biggest Steam game, with over 110,000 concurrent players at its peak. That’s slightly less than MultiVersus’ all-time Steam parallel count of 153,044, which it achieved during its 2022 open beta, but it’s a respectable start – a reboot.
MultiVersus has a bit of a strange history. When its 2022 open beta launched, we and many others assumed that MultiVersus would be available until its 1.0 release, like a regular early access game. That wasn’t the case. Developer Player First Games took MultiVersus offline last year in “preparation for launch.”
Though unexpected, the downtime was probably for the best. Molly gave us an early look at the new His MultiVersus, with missions that she described last week as a “massively improved experience” with heavier combat, improved camerawork, and great new PvE. She’s also a fan of one of the team’s newest additions, the somewhat controversial Banana Guard.
Their main complaint was the onslaught of the free-to-play monetization system. “I was bombarded with tons of daily missions, event-specific missions and battle pass missions, which left me disoriented trying to navigate the game`s menus,” Molly wrote.
Some players have different feelings about the reboot. Molly praises the harder combat, but one Steam reviewer said MultiVersus is “very clunky and slow now,” and they have heard this sentiment a few times myself. A rift seems to be opening up between open beta and release advocates.
The current Steam review average is positive, so it seems like the latter opinion is winning out, but then again, some of these reviews are trying to add Walter White to the list. What is the general reception?