Multiversus (for PC) Preview | PCMag

If you subscribe to HBO Max, or simply watched Space Jam: A New Legacy, you know that the fine folks at Warner Bros. (now Warner Bros. Discovery) have a large stable of intellectual properties. Multiversus takes those beloved characters—from brands like DC Comics, Game of Thrones, and Looney Toons—and throws them into a chaotic, free PC game. It’s a platform fighter (a sub-genre that’s become increasingly competitive over the years), but one with enough familiar faces and finely tuned online-focused gameplay to leave a strong first impression during its preview phase. 

Everyone, Everywhere, All at Once

You don’t need to own a huge roster of existing characters to make a successful platform fighter—just look at Brawlhalla. Still, crossovers definitely help deliver the hype. Fortunately, WB has IP strong enough to rival the likes of Disney, Nickelodeon, and Nintendo, giving Multiversus an appealing initial roster. 

DC Comics may already have its own dedicated fighting game with Injustice, but when you own half of all major superheroes, you can’t not put them in your crossover game. Multiversus includes the classic trinity: Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. You can also play as Harley Quinn for some clown villainy without all the gritty Joker baggage. Speaking of gritty, Arya Stark from Game of Thrones makes an appearance, which hopefully opens the door for other mature HBO characters, such as Logan Roy and Tony Soprano(Opens in a new window). Rick and Morty background elements also suggest that Adult Swim content is on the table.

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Multiversus has a wide variety of cartoon fighters, too. The combatants include classic characters, such as Bugs Bunny and Tom and Jerry, as well as modern Cartoon Network animated stars, such as Finn and Jake from Adventure Time and Steven and Garnet from Steven Universe. There’s even an original character, the cuddly Reindog, who fits right in. Since fighting games love a good meme, Shaggy from Scooby-Doo is basically Multiversus’ Ryu, a beginner-friendly martial artist with godly power because the internet said so. 

The preview build featured just a handful of rotating stages, including the Batcave and a Scooby-Doo haunted house, so not every character had their own home turf on display. However, every character has voice acting, often from iconic actors like Kevin Conroy and Matthew Lillard, which greatly adds to the production value. Compare that to the disappointingly silent characters in Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl. Dialogue even changes to match new costumes. Like the modern Mortal Kombat games, Multiversus’ characters adjust their lines to directly call out specific opponents, like Velma calling Shaggy by his government name, “Norville.”

World’s Finest 

It feels like there’s a new platform fighting game every few months now, but for the time being the best way to describe these games is still “like Super Smash Bros.” Instead of whittling away health bars, you dish out damage to leave foes vulnerable to big hits that knock them off the stage. These games focus more on high-flying mobility than complicated combo execution.

In some areas, Multiversus simplifies that formula even further. You have multiple jumps, normal attacks, special attacks, and defensive dodging. However, you can’t grab and throw opponents, and you don’t need to worry about unbalanced items. MMO-style, in-game class definitions also clue you into a character’s general playstyle. For example, Superman is a “tank” who can take lots of damage, while Bugs Bunny is a “mage” that uses flashy, unexpected ranged moves to keep opponents guessing. 

However, in other areas, Multiversus is fascinatingly complex. Characters have unique mechanics that take some practice to properly understand and execute. Finn earns cash while fighting that he can use to buy buffs in the middle of a match. Like Phoenix Wright in Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Velma Dinkley searches for clues and shouts big word balloons. And if Taz the Tasmanian Devil lands enough “tasty” damage then the other player temporarily turns into a roast chicken who can no longer attack.

Multiversus also innovates in its cooperative team mechanics. During a 2v2 match, many characters have moves that help their teammates, not just hurt the enemy. For example, you can jump off the stage to aggressively edgeguard, and Reindog’s tether can pull you back. Or, use Wonder Woman’s shield to protect you and your partner. This opens up all sorts of synergistic strategies we haven’t really seen in this genre. Helpful, hands-on tutorials explain when, where, and how to use which tactics, such as charging a color-coded move to break super armor. 

My initial impression is that Multiversus wants to be a more strategic platform fighter than the field, which is a noble goal; strategy is an underrated aspect that makes fighting games so cool. However, to achieve this, it seems that the developers at Player First Games intentionally slowed the pace of play. Sure, characters move quickly, and most attacks don’t have a punishing amount of lag. However, many special moves, from Batarangs to rabbit tunnels, use a cooldown system. As a result, you must monitor a meter to see when you can use them again. I get that this prevents you from simply spamming your best attacks, but with so many cooldowns some matches felt sluggish, closer to MOBAs than fighting games. Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl may feel a lot rougher around the edges, but I prefer its faster pace.  

Online and Progression

Multiversus is a free-to-play game, like Brawlhalla, and it’s definitely structured like one. As you play, you complete missions that unlock new battle pass goodies, such as profile icons or new visual effects when you knock someone out. You also level up individual characters to unlock perks to equip in matches, like a third jump or better defense. You can only equip a handful of perks, so at least this isn’t a pay to win system. You can grind out in-game currency to acquire additional characters, but there will also be in-game purchases.

If Multiversus has any significant single-player content, it wasn’t available in this preview. Instead, the game lives or dies on the strength of its online multiplayer action. Fortunately, cross-play and cross-progression should keep the audience from fracturing. The game also boasts dedicated servers with rollback netcode.

Multiversus offers numerous game modes, including 1v1, 2v2, and Free for All, and it lets you battle bots, casual players, or ranked players. We couldn’t create custom matches or play in local matches in the preview build, but that functionality should be live at launch. As for the online battles, I struggled with them while playing over the Steam Deck’s Wi-Fi connection, and even got kicked out of bot matches. However, Multiversus’ performance was flawless over a wired connection. Keep in mind that the preview build was a test, so things should hopefully improve.

Can Your PC Run Multiversus?

Multiversus is on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox, but bafflingly not the Nintendo Switch. The game has a nice stylized cartoon aesthetic, with bubbly animations and vibrant lighting, that successfully blends together the disparate worlds. I especially like the illustrated menu elements. That said, nothing here seems like it’s pushing anything to the limit. 

To run the game, you need a PC with at least an AMD FX-8350 or Intel Intel Core i5-2300 CPU, AMD Radeon HD 5850 or Nvidia GeForce GTX 550 Ti GPU, and 4GB of RAM. After tweaking some settings, I got the game to run fine on my Steam Deck. I also played on my Xbox Series S. Like any competitive fighting game, Multiversus needs a locked frame rate to be playable. In this case it was 60 frames per second, and both devices held to that standard. 

Multiversus of Madness

If all you want to see is a powered-up Shaggy throwing a sandwich at Batman, then Multiversus is already a success. The developers also have lofty esports ambitions, sponsoring a $100K tournament to coincide with EVO, so they have confidence the strategic team-based platform fighting will attract serious players. Still, we must wait and see if Multiversus lives as long as the beloved characters in its roster. See for yourself when the open beta begins in July. 

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