MultiVersus relaunched on May 28, 2024, however, fans aren't too thrilled with how the game turned out. Since the game's 2024 release, it received mixed reviews on Steam and is slowly having more negative reviews than positive ones. Player First Games shut the game down in early 2023 to make some adjustments to the game in hopes of creating a better product. Unfortunately, it appears that the exact opposite took place.
MultiVersus Relaunch Disaster
As of the time of this writing, there are currently 5,269 negative reviews on Steam for the relaunch of MultiVersus. On the other hand, there are 5,020 positive reviews, which is why the game's review status on Steam is still mixed. However, the fact that there are more negative reviews says a lot about how the developers flopped the game's relaunch.
Looking at May 29, 2024, the game received the most negative reviews with a total of 1,291. Many complained about how taking a one-year hiatus ended up with MutliVersus becoming worse than it was during the open beta.
Player Reviews on Steam
Here are some of the fans' reviews on Steam:
Teathling
Steam user Teathling posted an in-depth review and thoroughly broke down why they thought the game flopped. Particularly, they discussed the new UI, gameplay, and new content. Despite Player First Games' intention to give the players the content they deserve, the Steam user isn't a fan of the final product. (Note: We'll be posting a summarized version of the review.)
The recent re-release of this game coming out of beta basically removed everything that made the game fun to me. It randomly just disappeared without warning so they could supposedly just redo it but better even though a large amount of people spent money in the game expecting it to just stay up. Then about a year later they came back to the same game but worse. I've listed what I believe to be issues in this re-release bellow, it's a long list and it gets worse the further you read:
-Ui has been made more confusing and worse looking
-most of the new maps are just annoying gimmicks that are way too advantageous for specific characters.
-no ranked mode.
-very slow clunky movement compared to the beta
-very limited perk options in comparison to the first game.
-you cannot try characters in offline mode before purchasing them.
-you cannot have access to anything offline, if you're not online you get nothing but base characters.
-“Rifts”, I don't understand what the goal was with this, is it an attempt to replicate “subspace emissary” from smash brawl? Not only is it just bot matches half the time but it feels like it's just a grind to inflate player numbers over time on launch.
-characters that were problematic are now even more annoying to deal with, fast characters with fast attacks are not punished for spamming and missing, with the added hitbox changes.
-every character is bigger, this would seem like it's not an issue but it actually is, this benefits fast spammy characters and projectile characters heavily, landing strings/combos/projectiles takes way less thought process.
-attacks are also a full extension of your hitbox and there are no disjoints so if you think you're countering someone by trying to hit them when they missed they actually didn't miss because you tried to hit them where their attack hitbox was.
-a lot of attacks that had problematic hitboxes haven't changed, attacks that clearly swing up will hit you while you're under the character performing them.
I genuinely think the devs don't understand what people liked about their own game, taking a year to ruin your own game is wild.
169 players on Steam found Teathling's review to be helpful. Out of all 13 comments in their review, everyone agreed with the player's sentiments. Having that said, it's clear many are hating on MultiVersus' current state.
crab rangoons?!
Steam user crab rangoons?! had similar sentiments with Teathling. The player particularly pointed out how slow the gameplay felt. They feel like there are server issues, hence the input lags they feel in-game. The user also noticed how there are fewer players compared to the open beta of MultiVersus. In addition, they can't comprehend why the developers are limiting players to using only base characters for couch parties and practice modes.
How do you take a year to launch, come back with the game slower than it was before.. like, SLUGGISH, have server issues (with less players online than DURING THE BETA from steam), the campaign doesn't work, crashes and refuses to give progress …and try to hype all of this up for so long. What?
Oh, and not allowing more than base characters in offline mode/local/training? absolutely abysmal choices No ranked on launch? You had a YEAR, AND a beta people REALLY enjoyed!
I really am concerned for this game- they had ONE chance to tell people “Look how much we've improved over the past year!” There ARE improvements, but there are some MAJOR flaws. I haven't been able to play through one of the ‘campaign' tracks because either my friend crashes, or I just don't receive any progress. You get one chance to tell people to come back, why did it end up like this?
There was so much HYPE for this game in the beta; and it looked like the release would be better! But… man. It really stinks to see. They dropped the ball so hard. This had SO much potential.
Massive MultiVersus Incoming
Despite all the negative reviews from fans as of late, Player First Games is looking to address these issues. Co-founder and Director of MultiVersus Tony Huynh recently posted on X (formerly known as Twitter) that he acknowledges all the feedback from the player base.
Huynh promised that some missing features from the open beta are coming to the relaunched version of MultiVersus. These are inclusive of team colors, end-of-game stats, swapping side and neutral attacks, adjustable input buffer settings, and more.
The director then briefly explained why these features didn't come out in the relaunch in the first place. He pointed out that the team needed to rebuild the game with a new engine and was pressed for time to release everything. By the time the release date was around the corner, some features were still under testing and didn't pass for the final product. Huynh promises that these features will come out soon, which should hopefully give the player base a better gameplay experience.
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