News MultiVersus developer tweets seem to hint at imminent re-reveal (UPDATE: Relaunch May 28th)

[Behon]

The game was taken offline last year after an extended beta/early access period, and the team promised a full launch in 2024. Wouldn't be shocking if a reveal promising first details or a release date was part of the Xbox presentation tomorrow or a standalone announcement this week.

The initial release was easily the Smash-like I've sunk the most time into, so excited to see what's been added over the past year in terms of characters and features.

For those who never tried it, here's a gameplay trailer from the beta. Unique features included an emphasis on buffs/debuffs and 2v2 play (Though 1v1 and free-for-alls were included and fully featured, so don't worry), and obviously drawing from across the full stable of Warner Bros. IPs, from Looney Tunes to DC to Cartoon Network and even the likes of The Iron Giant and Arya Stark.

 

[oldpuck]

I remember it got a strong initial reaction, then a rapid tapering off of users. I honestly thought that pulling it from early access was a soft cancellation, glad to see it was a legitimate "we're gonna finish this offline and relaunch"

Hope it goes well for them.

 

[grobla123]

What a wild ride, big cross over IP game just...runs out of content, goes offline and delays release for many months.

Anyway, I personally don't like the game. And I LOVE smash clones. I like the Nick ones well enough for reference and I think the 2v2 focus is neat.

They have some very creative gameplay gimmick ideas for some of the characters but the moment to moment game feel is pretty bad for well over half the cast to me. It just feels less polished, often overly floaty and awkward but not in a Brawl (slow but polished despite not being every ones cup of tea) way, some of the movements just feel completely off, more like some of jankier moves from Melee or 64 make up full character sets. And the characters that felt okay were generic rush down or swordies. Game feel is subjective I suppose but very few characters clicked for me unlike almost every halfway decent Smash clone.

Glad people will get their purchases back, and access the content they paid for, probably.

 

[Behon]

I remember it got a strong initial reaction, then a rapid tapering off of users. I honestly thought that pulling it from early access was a soft cancellation, glad to see it was a legitimate "we're gonna finish this offline and relaunch"

Hope it goes well for them.

They didn't pace major content drops well, I think there was one single new fighter with Marvin in the later stages and then the amount of new stuff mostly dried up, so naturally many people moved on.

Hopefully they've used this time to have both stuff to bring people back for the relaunch (Especially since it's F2P, that should help at least initial interest) and have their workflow laid out for a more steady and constant pipeline of updates. If they somehow didn't learn their lesson then a possible second dropoff and resulting shutdown will surprise nobody.

 

[Hailinel]

I remember it got a strong initial reaction, then a rapid tapering off of users. I honestly thought that pulling it from early access was a soft cancellation, glad to see it was a legitimate "we're gonna finish this offline and relaunch"

Hope it goes well for them.

They were flat out unprepared to offer the level of support people expected with the scattered character releases and middling battle pass rewards. (Both seasons released during the beta had Bugs Bunny skins as the ultimate reward.)

By the time it went offline, it left a lot to be desired.

 

[9-Volt]

Not launching on Switch initially was a big mistake, games such as this has the biggest audience on Switch. I hope they noted Nick All Stars 2's sales performance on Switch.

 

[Mbolibombo]

I dont really expect it to last for long.

 

[BassForever]

It's hard enough to launch a live service game that's a hit, let alone launch it again after all the hype has died down. Will be curious to see how this relaunch does.

 

[InfinityWarrior88]

The tweet has like 30K likes, so the interest is still there. How much the general audience cares about this relaunch is another story. The mess with the "beta" + Warner Bros' incompetency + the game focusing on a niche idea within a niche audience (Competitive doubles has never been popular in any fighting game) doesn't exactly spell confidence for the longevity of MV.

 

[N75]

Game felt awkward to control, had too many MOBA style abilities that overcomplicated things, and had noticeable glitches like mixing up control schemes and at least one of the tutorials straight up not working.

I think I'll be ok not redownloading this.

 

[Ojoloco]

 

[BassForever]

Well... good luck

 

[Yamanoi]

Nice. Surprised they didn't drop last gen but good on them. Will check out on Xbox.

 

[Christo750]

honestly a really poor game all around. don't have hopes for this to be any better.

 

[Maronic03]

Still haven't mastered the art of generating excitement with their announcements I see...

 

[oldpuck]

I am not into fighting games generally, or Smash specifically, so this can't ever do it for me.

But I actually think this is all the right set of moves? Like, clearly, they had a great reaction to the idea of the game, the devs are passionate about the game and the genre, but the actual product didn't land. Rather than limping along to launch, they took it down, gave it a long time to stew, and brought it back at least on paper hitting a lot of the criticisms.

And they launched, not with a hype new trailer, but a communication that says "hey, we listened, here is what we did. Here is what we have to offer" which, considering the reaction last time, was absolutely required.

We'll see if the game is good, or if they manage to catch fire, but this is what you want. Not WB shutting the studio down and cancelling the game, or deathmarching it to launch.