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MultiVersus Will Be Shut Down This May

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As a wise rabbit once said, “Well, dat’s de end.” Warner Bros’ great IP experiment and shameless Smash clone MultiVersus is being retired after five “seasons” of content, and the inevitable discovery that the live-service genre isn’t as easy to nail as anyone thought.

“After careful consideration, our next Season will serve as the final seasonal content update for the game,” reads a notice posted to the official Multiversus website this morning. “We want to thank every player and person who has ever played or supported MultiVersus. All of us on the Player First Games and Warner Bros. Games teams have poured our heart and soul into this game. We will be forever grateful for the incredible support of the MultiVersus community throughout this journey.​”

Season 5 is still planned to be rolled out starting February 4, with Lola Bunny and Aquaman the latest additions. In-game purchases are suspended as of today; the servers will be unplugged May 30, after which point only offline local matches or games against AI opponents will be possible.

Final roster: Marceline, Raven, Nubia, Powerpuff Girls, Beetlejuice, Samurai Jack, Agent Smith, Joker, Jason (Friday the 13th), Banana Guard (Adventure Time), Marvin the Martian, Gizmo, Stripe, Black Adam, Rick, Morty, LeBron James, the Iron Giant, Taz, Velma, Arya Stark, Batman, Bugs Bunny, Finn, Jake, Garnet, Harley Quinn, Shaggy, Steven Universe, Tom & Jerry, Superman, Wonder Woman, Lola Bunny, Aquaman, and original character Reindog. Other teased fighters may wind up in limbo if they don’t appear within Season 5 — they have three months to fulfill their promise of any Animaniacs characters.

Complaints from those who played the relaunch version point to monetization being pushed too hard and most of the characters being paywalled…with a “free” game, you expect to be nickled and dimed, but MultiVersus took it too far for most people. And it’s not like Smash Bros isn’t still there — with a flat $60 entry fee plus a couple of expansions you can have everything, except Bugs Bunny. There’s no room in the market to make customers mad.

At the end of May, MultiVersus will be removed entirely from all digital storefronts. For those who claim a copy of the game before then, MultiVersus will still exist, but its usefulness will amount to that of a “Disney Infinity” disc from 2015. It will be a majorly online game that can no longer connect to the Internet. Perhaps dedicated fans can set up their own server, if such fans exist.

MultiVersus was a neat idea, and might’ve made for a great game had it been released as a traditional, non-transactional Smash clone, but the Zaslav Regime just had to greed it up. Shame, that. At least we got a cool comic book out of it:

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