When WB announced a universe-merging, Smash Bros-Esque fighting game that would bring together characters from many different franchises I was hooked immediately. This concept had been borrowed from Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros before but never from such a vast catalog of characters such as that of the Warner Brothers banner. So far the game seems the be leaning on its DC and Cartoon Network properties, WB owns a lot of different characters and I hope a lot of them make an appearance. My faith was rewarded a little when Arya Stark was added to the roster, and she is a very non-kid-friendly character. Yes, Im nostalgic for the cartoony selection that makes up most of the roster, but I already own Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl, and that’s all the cartoon character smash-em-up action I need plus, they have the Ninja Turtles.
-picture-Before I get into the gameplay or features of this game I want to talk about the roster a bit. Right off the bat, we have an unbalanced amount of DC characters and I hope that changes. Every other property has one or two characters to represent, but DC has the main trinity of Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman. This trio is accompanied by the all too popular Harley Quinn which adds up to 4 Dc characters. I let WB know my thoughts on this, and while I do love me some DC, we need to spread that love out more. I was very happy to see Shaggy had not only been added but he had been given the strength and power that had been granted to him by the meme community. He was joined in the Alpha build by Velma, who used words to fight. I quite liked using her. My favorite fighter ended up being the one and only Tazmanian Devil. Nothing could stop his devastating spin attack, and he had a set of moves that if connected 16 times, would turn your opponent into a defenseless cooked chicken. This roster is already great, just from the Alpha. I will say that was sad that right before the Alpha was opened for those of us that got a special code, they released a teaser trailer that showed Iron Giant teaming up with Superman. Iron Giant was not playable in the Alpha, but that gives me something to look forward to in the Beta and finished game.
Teams are an important aspect of MulitVerses as the gameplay is based on 2v2 matches. the first time I played, I’ll admit that I didn’t have the best time playing with only randoms as there is no in-game chat system, but I eventually figured out that I had a few invited to accompany my closed Alpha code and things got much more fun once I was able to invite our very own Brian to join me in the fray, and things got much more fun. Believe it or not, the mix-and-match method was our best way of doing things. Brian played a lot with Shaggy and together with my Taz, we wrecked a lot of other players. One duo that seemed to be a fan favorite was Finn and Jake from Adventure time. Just like in the show, they were both great fighters, but together they were almost unstoppable. I don’t know if the classes or personal preferences caused a lot of the match-ups we faced but another combination that seems to be super popular is that of Bugs Bunny and Wonder Woman together, which ended up being a giant pain for the two of us.
As far as features go, there seems to be a season pass with a free route and a Premium route. To my knowledge, there has not yet been a price set on the premium pass but I would assume it is somewhere between ten and twenty dollars like most premium season passes. Keep in mind this game will be free to play, so if you want to support it and keep new content coming, this might be the only way. I did take an exit survey a few days after the Alpha ended and they asked several questions about what I would be willing to pay for. I went heavy on the new characters because I’ll be honest, I want WB to open up hard. A lot of the unlockables are cosmetics like different costumes, taunts, player icons, banners, and special ring-out animations. I got up to level 35 and was able to permanently unlock the Alpha tester icon and banner, which I will rock once the full game comes out. The fact that this was doable from the alpha build also leads me to believe personal profiles will be stored online and not on your console, so take that as you will.
My favorite thing about this game so far is the character interactions. every character has a unique dialogue depending on their opponent. While there are generic lines for certain characters, they usually pertain to moves or actions rather than dialogue between two characters. Batman telling Harley Quinn that she’s become a better fighter than the joker was a great one for DC fans and Jake the Dog mocking the way Taz talks was possibly my favorite. Switching costumes also changed dialogues altogether. Shaggy’s alternate costume from the Alpha wasn’t just a physical change, Uncle Shagsworth had a completely separate set of dialogue, including telling opposing Shaggy players that “If you hit me again, I shall disinherit you”. This alone is worth checking out the game. Sure the combat isn’t anything new, but I feel like Multiverses will bring a lot to the table.
Brian and I had a blast playing on our Twitch channel and I recommend checking out the replays as they are available still to watch. We played it until it literally kicked us out and I still wanted more. The Open Beta starts sometime in July 2022 and I hope to see you there.
