Surprise! 'Multiversus' Was An Open Beta All This Time, Will Be Taken Offline And 'Released' Next Year
You may be surprised to remember that Warner Bros. platform fighter Multiversus, which was released in July 2022, won Fighting Game of The Year at the Game Awards and charged players for cosmetic and premium battle upgrades, was technically in open beta all this time.
In case you forgot, Warner Bros. and developers Player First games just posted a reminder by announcing Multiversus' open beta will close in June this year before the game goes completely offline until "early 2024."
MVPs, thank you for the support during Open Beta! The feedback and inspiration has been amazing. Open Beta will close on June 25 as we prepare for full launch in early 2024. #MultiVersus will be back better than ever with new content, features, modes & more when we return. pic.twitter.com/6NOCMRDBrp
— MultiVersus (@multiversus) March 27, 2023
On the Multiversus website, Player First's Tony Huynh explains that when the open beta shutters on June 25th, the developers will focus on "the content cadence of new characters, maps and modes to give you more ways to enjoy the game, along with updated netcode and more matchmaking improvements. We’ll also be reworking the progression system based on your feedback and looking at new ways for you to connect with your friends in the game." The game will be removed from stores on April 4th.
Multiversus is a platform fighter a la Smash Bros, and while it's free-to-play, it did engage in some "freemium" practices, such as selling cosmetic and experience upgrades for a price. One package could cost players $100. Players who spent money on Multiversus and want a refund — because the game they'll have been playing for a year is about to disappear for at least six months — can't get one. Player First says all purchases made in the "open beta" period will, however, carry over when it officially releases.
This is certainly a gambit on Warner Bros. and Player First's part. While Multiversus generated the most hype out of any supposed "Smash killer" upon its release, it largely failed to keep players engaged in its first six months out, and as of February, the game's PC player base was down 99 percent.
Considering the bleak trajectory Multiversus has been taking in recent months, many are unconvinced the game will "officially" release at all, and fired off memes about it and the players who paid for content they may never again be able to enjoy.
Players will have to wait until "early 2024" to see if Multiversus is able to recapture the hype the open beta had upon its initial release — that is, if Multiversus actually does return.
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Oh Ben
Yea no, when your game is asking people for money at the rate this game has been pumping out, its left beta. If they had a higher player base the game would have never been taken offline.
SardonicRainboom
To be fair, the quality was about what one would expect from a game in beta.
Sunsoft Bass
3 things that can happen:
- The game will get a comeback like No Man's Sky and Fall Guys in 2024, the finished version will be complete and have more of what made Smash Bros. a success in the first place beyond just famous characters.
- The game will get relaunched in 2024, and fail again, either because the game is still not complete, or because while the game is way better now, success from live services is a lottery.
- The game won't even get the real launch, Warner Bros. is such a mess that David Zaslav will pull the plug.
Excitebot theLEGO
Meanwhile Rivals of Aether be like:
"Hey, wanna play as Walter White and Barack Obama?
Because you still can."
Rhettorical
If I had a nickel for every time WB came out with a shoddy entry into a genre that basically no one else has been able to crack, that they then shut down after having raked in money from hopelessly optimistic gamers, I'd have at least two nickels.
Lonefirebearer
Somebody brought up that this might be 'The Canary in The Coal Mine' for the Live Service Game Boom. Like don't be surprised if other corporations decide their game is a "Open Beta" and when those Corpos decided that they have made enough cash on a thing and well… Just pull it off the net.
Of course there's probably going to be lawsuits out the ass but, you know what I mean right?
Timey16
Another Smash clone bites the dust. Shocker.
Did the game have any items or inventive maps with lotsa gimmicks? The "competitive crowd" may scoff at it, but they competitive crowd is NOT Smash's main player base, MOST players play it like a party game.
If your Smash clone can't deliver on the party game aspect it's imho doomed to fail. Because this is what gets people into it in the first place.
Pokejoseph64
It’s how I love playing Smash
With lots of items and on random maps
Sunsoft Bass
They were trying to add a little part modes, but the game was more focused on the competitive aspect since Day 1.
The game was still in Beta and missed many things that made Smash Bros. a great game, they are likely planning a single-player adventure mode, but who knows, Warner is such a mess that we might never see the content the developers wanted to add.
Sunsoft Bass
Surprise? They always said it was an Open Beta and never hid it.
On the good side, they want to make this game complete, and are taking the game off air to focus on giving the game the final touches.
On the bad side, it's very likely they never wanted to do this, they wanted to keep the Open Beta on air until the full launch, but lack of players gave them no choice.
The best thing is that the game will still be available offline, if servers of this game close again, this time forever, the game will work offline.
Soxar
Lack of players isn't the reason but just another result of whatever is going on behind the scenes, likely at WB itself. As in, what caused said lack of players was the game not getting content since last november, when season 2 started and only 1 character has been released since then (and it was in november itself). Since then the devs went radio silence on updates, only posting about how they were making sure everything was up to snuff and not wanting to announce stuff before it was ready (cause season 1 was riddled with delays, though even with that they still released like 6 characters in the span of a few months), which eventually even had season 2 end being postponed by 2 months, and now that the supposed real end of the season came they instead busted out this announcement. It's clear imho something very weird is going on and again imho has to do with WB and licensing issues, i figure something akin to the devs working on certain content WB then lost the rights to, we know it happened for the LOTR stuff the game was supposed to have on release
Anyway hope that whatever it is they'll figure it out
Rhettorical
I never once heard the game was in Open Beta. I don't play, but I have a lot of friends who do and were hyped as hell, they had no idea either. They had a Closed Beta and then led up to "launch", not "open beta launch". They sold things for money in-game. They sold season passes, they're in "Season 2". This isn't Warframe levels of "Oh wait, we're still in beta? Huh, I guess we are." This is outright deception at worst, complete incompetence at best.
If a game's in Open Beta, it should have the "Early Access" tag on Steam, or be titled as such. It wasn't and it's not. I think everyone knew the game was going to be a failure, but no one could have anticipated this.
:̶.̶|̶:̶;̶
Fuck WB and fuck the live service era.