MultiVersus welcomed over 100,000 Steam brawlers on its relaunch, but new character restrictions have left a bad taste in the mouth of players.
The multi-franchise Warner Bros. fighter re-released last night across PC, Xbox and PlayStation, following the end of its open beta last year. On Steam, it recorded a concurrent player peak of 114,515 in the last 24 hours.
However, despite some fairly impressive numbers, the free-to-play brawler has come under fire from the community for a number of reasons, with the main issue being new character restrictions.
MultiVersus players have found themselves blocked from using the full roster when playing locally, as well when accessing the training mode. While on the MultiVersus website
“It used to be the case that you could play any character for local play, and I’ve been having a blast playing with my siblings all year, but now that the game is out, the characters you can select are only the ones you’ve officially unlocked,” reads one thread on reddit. “I mean, I know why they did it (money), but I’m really disappointed by this new edition and my hype has been officially killed.”
“This is going to actually lose them money in the long run because now people won’t invite their friends over to play local matches,” another user replied. “Fighting game tournaments will be far less likely to host this game. It’s only day one and they’re already bottlenecking the amount of people that will see the game.”
Character restrictions for local play is a major disappointment
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Currently, players can unlock new MultiVersus characters by purchasing them with Gleamium (the in-game premium currency) or with Fighter Currency. Both Gleamium and Fighter Currency can be earned through events and grinding, but Gleamium can also be acquired with real-world money. Some characters are unlocked by completing challenges, and there are a handful of characters available to play without purchasing them.
A number of players have subsequently reasoned MultiVersus is a free-to-play game, and needs to generate revenue somehow, and therefore they don’t see a problem with the new restrictions. However, others feel locking characters even in training mode is an especially low blow. Many argued this is when players could take a ‘try before you buy’ approach to fighters.
Greedy Warner Brothers
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Other quibbles on MultiVersus’ relaunch have included reports the game now feels “slow and clunky to play”, the camera zooms in far too often, lag, and “no more battle pass XP after every match”.
Eurogamer has reached out to Warner Bros. for further comment on the aforementioned change.