MultiVersus: The wasted potential and demise of the Warner Bros fighter

There was so much potential with MultiVersus, a cross-platform fighting game developed by Player First Games and published directly by Warner Bros. Games. With a top-tier roster of characters from popular culture across Warner Bros. franchises and fun, high-octane fighting mechanics, MultiVersus seemed like an easy win. Unfortunately, this success was short-lived, and on May 30, 2025, MultiVersus was delisted and taken offline. 

The rise, fall, and eventual complete shutdown of Warner Bros. MultiVersus is a frustrating tale of long waits, unnecessarily aggressive monetisation, and gameplay inconsistencies. But how and why did this happen when the game seemed to have everything it would need to be a roaring success? 

Warner Bros. MultiVersus is a free-to-play platform fighter game that features characters from some of the most beloved franchises in the world. The game was announced at the end of 2021, with open betas and early access versions playable from summer 2022 to June 2023. 

The open beta for the game was a huge success. It managed to attract 142,086 concurrent Steam players during its peak, which made it the fourth-biggest Steam game at the time. It also managed to attract an average of just over 70,200 players in the weeks following. All in all, more than 20 million players were active in the MultiVersus open beta in the first month alone. The stats were staggering, and success seemed inevitable.

MultiVersus had all the ingredients to become a highly successful live service game. Not only were the open beta stats fantastic, but the game had every franchise under the Warner Bros. umbrella at its disposal. From Batman to Game of Thrones, Looney Tunes to Rick and Morty, the MultiVersus characters came from some of the most lucrative franchises in the world. 

Despite all of these factors in the game’s favour, MultiVersus saw a steady decline, leading to a complete online shutdown and delisting. 

One of the major reasons that MultiVersus saw such a drop in players was the odd choices made regarding the game’s release. The open beta was a soft launch of sorts for the game, releasing on July 26, 2022. However, on March 7, 2023, Player First Games announced that the open beta would be shut down on June 25, 2023. This shutdown was intended to give the team a chance to work on preparation for the game’s full launch, which occurred on May 28, 2024. 

Unfortunately, MultiVersus could not gain the same traction that it had during the open beta. All online functions were made unavailable during the downtime after the open beta, and offline functions were limited, though still available. New players could not access the game at all, leading to frustration. 

When the game finally relaunched, it was missing various features that had been present during the open beta, such as post-match statistics and ranked matchmaking. These features were returned to the game later, but it was too little, too late. 

Monetisation also became all the more prevalent when MultiVersus relaunched. Various cosmetics were incredibly expensive, while unlockable content could only be obtained through tedious grinding if players didn’t want to hand over real cash. Certain fighters were also locked behind a paywall, and players could no longer test out locked characters via training mode, which felt particularly harsh. 

Gameplay was also noticeably slower when the game relaunched, losing some of the previous fluidity that had made the fighting mechanics so engaging. This was incredibly confusing for players, as the whole point of the open beta closure was for the issues within the beta to be fixed when the game was re-released. Instead, it felt like the game had taken a nosedive and gotten significantly worse since the enjoyable and well-received open beta. 

The lengthy wait between the open beta closure and the full game launch, along with the disappointment and frustration that fans felt from missing features and predatory monetisation, all eventually led to the MultiVersus shutdown. 

There is so much that MultiVersus could have and should have been. The sheer possibilities were astronomical when it came to the franchises that Warner Bros. could have brought into the game via fighters, stages, interactions, and crossover storytelling. There were already plans to bring in plenty more popular Warner Bros characters, which were found via datamining. Some of these characters included: 

If the gameplay had been more polished, as was promised after the open beta, and the monetisation dialled down to something more manageable (though not completely removed, it was a free-to-play game after all), then the possibilities could have been endless. Tie in events with shows and movies, original characters that could have crossed over into other media, a thriving esports league, it all could have been possible. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t to be. 

As a platform fighter, there was also plenty of opportunity for MultiVersus to make it big in the esports scene. The likes of Super Smash Bros, Tekken, Mortal Kombat, and Street Fighter had dominated the fighting esports leagues for years. A fresh new title like MultiVersus had huge potential to bring something new and unique to the table and possibly become a staple in esports fighting games. The esports elements of MultiVersus are yet another disappointing waste of potential. 

MultiVersus shutting down is a culmination of mismanagement, poor decisions, and an inability to bring back that initial excitement of the open beta. It’s highly frustrating to imagine what could have been with MultiVersus, seeing as there was so much potential when it came to the fighter roster, cross-promotion with other Warner Bros projects, and a path in the world of esports. Perhaps one day the game could be revived, but for now, MultiVersus is well and truly dead and buried.