
Update #2 []: Over the weekend, MultiVersus game director Tony Huynh put out a statement on social media about the game's final season and impending shutdown.
In it, he makes a few points. While he's "sad about the outcome", he's "grateful for the opportunity" provided by Warner Bros., and thanks all the various IP holders who allowed their characters to be represented.
Huynh apologises that the team couldn't get to every requested character, but assures Lola Bunny and Aquaman, the final pair of fighters, are "really cool".
He also makes a point of bringing up some hateful comments and messages he and the team have received in the wake of the news.
"I know that this is painful for everyone, and I know every member of [Player First Games] feels it too, but I have to call this out, you’re entitled to what you say and think, but when there are threats to harm it’s crossing the line," Huynh writes.
"I hope that you can take a step back and realize that this is an extremely sad time for the team. I am in deep mourning for the game. Nobody wanted this outcome and it wasn’t from lack of caring or effort."
He signs off by thanking everyone for playing and "allowing this dream to become a reality even if for a briefer time than we would have wanted".
Update #1 []:
Following the rumour, developer Player First Games has confirmed that Season 5 will be the last content update for MultiVersus.
Not only that, but once Season 5 concludes, the game will no longer be playable online, and will be removed from digital storefronts.
Season 5 will begin on 4th February and end on 30th May, adding two new playable characters to the roster — Aquaman and Lola Bunny, which were heavily rumoured. All content added in Season 5 will be unlockable through gameplay.
MultiVersus will remain online until the season ends on 30th May, after which it will only be playable offline. Anyone who wants to continue playing offline will need to login during Season 5, when local save data will be created, allowing them to keep their progress.
Additionally, after 30th May, MultiVersus will no longer be available to download from PS Store or other digital stores.
The developer has also confirmed that, as of 31st January (today), all real money microtransactions are disabled. Players can use any remaining Gleamium or character tokens until the end of Season 5, but they cannot purchase more.
"Most importantly, we want to thank every player and person who has ever played or supported MultiVersus," reads the blog post on the game's website.
"All of us on the Player First Games and Warner Bros. Games teams have poured our heart and soul into this game. We will be forever grateful for the incredible support of the MultiVersus community throughout this journey."
It's a real shame to see another multiplayer game reach the end of the road, but with ever-decreasing player numbers, the writing was on the wall.
Will you be checking out MultiVersus' final season? Pour one out in the comments section below.
Original Story: New internet scuttlebutt has surfaced about WB Games' free-to-play platform fighter, MultiVersus, and it's not sounding great.
AusilMVS, a known leaker of information about the game, has said the upcoming Season 5 "may be the final season [...] depending on how it performs".
They claim to have heard this from a "notable source", describing Season 5 as a "last-ditch effort" for MultiVersus.
The upcoming seasonal update is due to arrive in February, when a handful of new fighters, maps, and cosmetics will give MultiVersus a refresh. It's not currently known who the new playable characters will be, although Aquaman and Lola Bunny are rumoured.
MultiVersus began with a long open beta period, during which the game reached the peak of its popularity. After taking the game offline and working on it for its official launch, the fighter arrived in May 2024, and it's been struggling to retain its audience ever since.
Warner Bros. has said the game has "significantly underperformed", and current Steam numbers aren't too healthy, with 336 players playing at the time of writing.
Sad as it would be to see it go, it wouldn't be a huge surprise to see WB Games starting to wind down support for MultiVersus. If the rumour is true, Season 5 will be make or break — here's hoping it can breathe some life into the game.
Are you still enjoying MultiVersus? What are you hoping to see in Season 5? Tell us in the comments section below.
[source x.com, via insider-gaming.com, multiversus.com, x.com]
Comments 64
It’s really fun - but not being on switch I think is the issue. Most kids this would appeal to have switches not PlayStations or Xbox’s
Lola's appearance in 1996
@stronglook No the issue is that it's a disgusting micro transaction ridden hellscape
And thus the live service slide continues...
It's honestly a shame cause the idea has so much potential, but I think the terrible grind and having characters locked were the biggest downfalls of the game.
Locking characters to grinding or paying was not the way, I genuinely don't know why they did it this way instead of just releasing the game as a standard package and adding DLC, that's why I haven't played.
They should just ditch all the free-to-play stuff and sell it for decent price. I'd buy the full game for £15.
@IceClimbersMain because they thought they would make a fortune nickel and diming people. Why make it a single purchase for $60 when you can slowly make more. Problem is it's getting harder to get people on board.
Yep, 3 months later after the last MultiVerses article I saw here, still forgetting this thing exists. I can’t believe I saw some people saying this was better than Smash Bros. back in the beta phase or whatever it was. And 5 seasons and it’s not even been 9 months since release? After the initial good reception this crashed and burned fast.
Wait, this game hasn't even been officially out a year, and we're already FIVE seasons in???
I don't think platform fighters as a Live Service game works when you're that aggressive on the battle pass/DLC. Its not hard to see what the issue is with that. It's either really tedious, or more expensive than a full priced game and you aren't going to find enough people willing to commit to constantly investing into a product that will inevitably cease to exist.
This game had potential if they didn't ruin it with the mobile esq monetization. Such a shame because the gameplay was fun I just could not stand the in your face microtransactions. As soon as they made the decision to gatekeep characters behind a paywall (or requiring a large amount grinding) I knew it was over. I have no doubt that if they made it a regular game with vs mode and arcade mode and sold it for $40 that it would have been very successful.
WB could have had something special with this but greed killed it.
Make an offline mode and give the option to buy all its content for $40-50, and I'll be there.
Also very hopeful we stop seeing live-service apologists throughout 2025. We get it: of the hundreds of live-service games released, about 20 are profitable and 4 are uber-successful. Still an mostly vapid business model that reduces gaming's artistry and produces cynical, manipulative products. Stop defending it. A live-service can be good, and it can be successful, but that doesn't mean we should cheer on as the entire industry collapses under its false pretense of unlimited income.
Also-also, I wonder how many people from the beta that said it was better than Super Smash still play it...
Game focused too much on DC comics and Adventure Time, for me. I really wanted it to succeed despite my disdain for the Free to Play model, but this game deserves the grave.
Unlock all the characters and I’ll come back.
Those are Concord numbers.
Difference being Concord dropped this low on like day 3, not year 3. We know how that ended.
I liked playing it when it first came out but I'm not the biggest fan of fighting games so I lost interest even if I loved most of the characters.
Just like MK 1, WB just doesn't know how to handle fighting games.
So much potential wasted on a garbage live service model. I'm sure we'll be seeing a new Smash Bros. soon anyways.
If it was a regular game where you can buy it and that's it you can unlock everything at your own pace I think it would have fared better, why didn't they just copy the same model as Smash since they copied everything else?
They dropped the ball so many times with this. At launch, it had hardly any local multiplayer options, and is still missing a good deal of stuff for offline play. The UI is a terrible mess, and the screens are horrendous to navigate. The coop mode was really pretty shallow, although they did do well with introducing the seasons. But ultimately, it being such a grind for characters, (and I know a few people who said they lost half their unlocks across the reboot!) And it constantly feeling like a half-baked work in progress, (constant matchmaking issues, rarely feeling balanced etc.) really ruined what had real potential to be a fun game.
I'll be sad to see it go because it's improved a lot since launch. Unfortunately it hasn't been able to shake it's negative reputation.
And to the Smash/Brawlhalla/Rivals players celebrating its downfall...it's not like MvS shutting down is going to bring us over to your game lol
I'll just go back to Tekken and Street Fighter
@RoomWithaMoose The game being a live service makes a lot of sense, in fact fighting games suits the model really well the issue is Multiverses focused on greed first, greed 2nd, greed 3rd and everything else 4th. If they followed the Marvel Rivals model of just making MTX/battle passes cosmetic only then the game might have been a big success.
This game died when they took it offline for a year to get ready for the ‘official launch’. Now when you look at how Rivals is doing the FTP thing with all their characters, and how Multiversus does it, it’s no surprise people aren’t interested.
How's is this slop still even a thing even after pulling it and rereleasing. You can tell the porkies saw high hopes in their Mtx scheme on this one, and yet once again another failure.....
Get the hint yet?
@PuppetMaster there's nothing wrong with MK1
@JohntheRaptor There's plenty of wrong with MK 1.
Maybe make a game before you make a way to open the wallets of people
@FinneasGH Yeah they just clean you out with costumes. They make a good game with lots of characters and lets you pay through costumes. Multiversus never took the time to create a game they just wanted your money without even trying to disguise it.
Why are servers getting pulled so fast for multiplayer games, and why aren't we more outraged about it?
People spent money on this game. They deserve it to hang around in zombie mode for a while. Servers used to last for years and years before getting pulled
And nothing of value was loss. Imagine spending hundreds or thousands on this game, and now it's all going to be useless. That's what you get for ever investing on any WB games.
Another one gone. The more of these that fail the better the future gaming industry will be.
The game was fully released on May 28, 2024.
Imagine if you spent money on this game 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑👀
@FinneasGH I will say Rivals is kind of the other way, as they have a paid premium title, but because of that I believe they are much more kind with their costumes and monetization, and thus all of their future characters and major content are free instead. It's more so about how Rivals wants to be a game that lives on with live service elements, compared to Multiversus wanting to be a live service that has to stand up as a game.
I was just waiting for Neo to join the battle. And some more Lord of the Rings characters. Jeez. This blows.
@ThomasHL It is because the cost to run the servers has increased exponentially. Most companies no longer have their own datacenters to maintain servers anymore but instead rent them from a huge conglomerate that essentially has a monopoly on renting servers. They have bought out most of their competitors and the result is now they can charge absurd amounts for a company to rent the servers. Game publishers can no longer afford to keep the servers going if the game isn't making them a profit.
Remember when Maximilian was in the middle of one of his "I know everything about the industry" attacks and he said fighting games (this is a party game but still) should be f2p? And then he took this game initial hype to backup that idea? LOL.
Being F2P killed this game, should have went the Smash Bros paid route
Saw this loss coming miles away…🙄
always looked like an extremely cheap mobile game & played like one. that was my biggest issue and turn off with this game , considering how big & rich WB is. the game had no business feeling like some mediocre indie garbage. give me AAA games , with AAA quality & content or just hurry up and stop making games WB. y’all ruined MK (& arkham) anyway
@GymratAmarillo Tbf he is an overrated flog lmao
Knew this would happen. Let this be a lesson. Never ever invest money into a free-to-play game. Ever.
Is this the Age of Multiplayer Death?
Only thr BIG BIG BIG games survive it seems
A game whose progression systems were riddled with anti-player/consumer predatory practices and that didn't respect your time didn't fair well in the market? Color me shocked.
They should make all characters free to play immediately.
hope they take the opportunity to re-balance the F2P grind to be way more manageable. I don't mind having to play to unlock characters and costumes, but the game really pushed the grind to incentivize people to pay up.
I played a lot during early access and played a few matches when it returned. It just wasn’t interesting enough to play long term.
Huge missed opportunity not releasing a Switch version.
Game publishers are comically stupid, and all too often.
@GymratAmarillo Yeah i remembered. This is one of his video that asked publishers to go full F2P
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=S4jF1skrEBY&pp=ygUYTWF4aW1pbGxpYW4gZnJlZSB0byBwbGF5
I wrote a long comment on his video of why fighting games shouldn't be F2P, which i'm glad publishers like Capcom and SNK didn't listen to his words.
Sure there's some successful F2P fighting game like Brawlhala. But the rest like Tekken Revolution, Soul Calibur: Lost Sword, DoA 6, and this game are all flops.
Sad to see. I really enjoyed my time with it personally. I even think gameplay-wise I prefer it to Smash Bros slightly. It certainly had much better online support than Smash. Multiversus had its issues but overall this was a pretty damn solid platform fighter that just couldn't keep up with the demands of its audience.
It put Player First on my radar though at least. I'm interested to see where the studio goes from here.
@Wilshiire I agree with you on every level. People act a fun game can only succeed if its a life service. All these fighters now do their best not to release a full package at the end too just not let us get used with normal games.
@EVIL-C The game wouldn't work very well on Switch anyways. Since it was a live service title that must be online at all times, it makes no sense to be on Switch cause you can't take and play the game on the go with you. This was one of the main reason why live service RPG, Genshin Impact never came to the Switch as the portable nature of the Switch platform is not a reliable outcome for the game.
@Korgon I think Player First's days are numbered. Warner Bros. bought them out entirely in hopes that their up-and-coming live service game would be a perpetual money generator. Instead, it was a failure. Similar situation with Sony and Firewalk Studios with Concord; Firewalk barely lasted past two months after Concord's demise.
In the best-case scenario, Warner Bros. retains the developers and puts them to work on shoring up their more profitable ventures. It's more likely that they just freeze out the studio and lay off the dev team en masse.
@Serpenterror but how many switch players actually play on the go? I think I read somewhere that most use it as a handheld at home.
I got this in early access (and paid for it). It was fun for a while, then got taken offline. When it came back up, I lost most of my characters that I had unlocked and found out that they had to be purchased or severely grinded for to get them back. Ridiculous, not to mention the game changed and was less fun. Stopped playing, lesson learned. This game was a total cash grab S-show.
I wanted to try it but i had to setup a WB account didnt feel like it.
The biggest problem with the industry is people think we play games for the IP, and are willing to pay forever for access to those characters, but in reality we want a fun game above anything else.
@ThomasHL Server capacity is very expense especially if you aren't running it out of a backroom in your office. Now with major cloud provider like AWS, Google Cloud, Azure... Companies aren't running server onsite like they used to. It all handed off to a 3rd party company now.
@nomither6 " considering how big & rich WB is"
WB or more so WBD (Warner Bros Discover) isn't exactly rich. They're basically sinking, and struggling financially.
@AverageGamer even before multiversus ?
@nomither6 The entire company has been doing terrible since early 2010s. The gaming division barely bring in any profit, and we been talking about them selling off the gaming division since 2014... The company has gone through multiple mergers to keep a float since they was nothing but a money pit for AT&T so they was spun off... They are still struggling at they cancel multiple projects for cost saving and Tax write offs. And what they did to Cartoon Network is tragic.
@AverageGamer damn , i had no idea
Better question is why are people sending death threats?!
@Serpenterror Modify the game and make a custom Switch version then? I just assumed it played like Smash Bros. They even admitted that when the game goes offline you can continue playing it offline, which tells me a Switch version could've been adapted to begin with. 🤷♂️
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