Multiversus Review - Franchise Wars
What happens when a mad scientist crosses paths with a sarcastic bunny? Who comes out on top when a hockey mask-wearing serial killer bumps into a crazed beast who ate after midnight? Can the crown prince of crime really beat a cat-and-mouse duo who are finally working together? These are the questions asked by Multiversus and there is only one way to answer them… with a good honest bit of biffo.
I am not going to spend too much time setting up Multiversus and its weird road to release. You can read my preview if you want to find out more. What I am going to do is talk about its state now that it has finally reached version 1.0.
First things first, the tech. One of the big reasons the game originally left online stores after the beta was so the development team could convert the game into Unreal Engine 5. It is hard to say what impact this has had on the final product, because at first glance there is little difference graphically. That said, everything runs buttery smooth at a high frame rate so there is a good base here as the game goes forward. When 1.0 first went live there were some network issues but that seems to have settled down now and the netcode appears to be rock solid. I had minimal connectivity issues playing against fellow PC players or those on console, with occasional loading delays at the end of a match being the only issue I ran across. In all performance was stable and reliable on the network side of things which is essential in this sort of experience.
I guess the question on everyone’s mind is the monetization, which is understandable. Look I have to say it isn’t the worst I have seen, but it certainly isn’t the best. If you want to unlock characters permanently it is going to take a lot of grinding, but if you are the type of person that is happy to pay for some characters (or are happy with the rotation), everything else seems to unlock at a fairly reasonable rate. There is one area that I find a bit rough though. During certain sections of the game’s PvE mode, some options are only available to players with particular skins. I find this a bit too much of a push on player’s wallets for my liking. Locking content away based on a skin is rough.
There are however, a metric tonne of things to unlock so those endorphins will be flowing. Each character has its own unlocks, there are season pass unlocks, daily login bonuses, PvE rewards and just general experience earning. It is like a big old ball of flashing lights and ringing bells when it comes to game and unlock progression. Multiple currencies also lead to confusion, with it often being unclear which earned currency goes with which shop item. It isn’t a bad system as such, just a confusing one and I feel like there have been lessons learned from pokies and casinos with how everything sings and dances over the smallest achievement.
All that said, gameplay is king and here the gameplay is a blast. Everything is exactly how I would want a legit alternative to Smash Bros to turn out. The character selection is great and there seems to be a good balance with each character. Moment to moment is really about dodging other players’ attacks and making them pay the price for their miss. It creates a dynamic battle between two equally skilled opponents. When the battle has more than two players things become instantly more chaotic, which is part of the primal joy of these sorts of games. Like Smash Bros, I feel like Multiversus is a party game first and a competitive fighter second.
This leads me to where this game truly shines, couch play. There is such joy to be had playing with people in the same room. Anyone can pick up a controller and have a blast with Multiversus, something so few games do well. The catch here is that the game’s free-to-play nature means that unless you have purchased some characters, I think people will get bored with the selection pretty quickly in a party situation. That said, if you do have a good selection of characters unlocked and ready to go, this could really be a great addition to any party, backyard BBQ or shindig, no matter the age or skill level of the partygoers.
Undoubtedly, I had a lot of fun with Multiversus and will continue to do so, but I wholeheartedly think it could be a better game. Had it been released as a traditional game, with all the characters available and none of the pressuring F2P tactics, I think Multiversus would have been a true contender to Smash Bros’ title. As it is, Multiversus is still a hell of a good time but it is let down by the constant feeling of being pressured into spending money. If you can look past that or are willing to spend a few dollars to grab your favourite characters I can say that you will have a blast, especially with mates. If, however, F2P annoys you, you are better off looking for your fighting fix elsewhere.
Multiversus was reviewed on PC with extra in-game currency kindly provided by the publisher.
