The fighting game MultiVersus has always had a huge amount of attention placed on it, featuring playable fighters from some of the most well-known forms of media in the world. From Bugs Bunny to Shaggy from Scooby-Doo, the title's biggest allure is arguably the massively diverse yet recognizable fighter roster that it possesses.
While discourse surrounding the game can be said to have lulled in more recent months, MultiVersus recently won the award for Best Fighting Game at this year's Game Awards ceremony. A great achievement in itself, this award may additionally serve to bolster the relevance and sustainability of the release, both now and looking toward the future.
The Current Life Cycle of MultiVersus
MultiVersus originally launched in July of this year, being a rather bold release from Warner Bros. Interactive. Utilizing characters from a variety of Warner Bros. IPs to make up its playable fighter roster, the game formed an instant connection with its player-base. At its core MultiVersus is a side-on platform fighter, featuring a variety of different interactive arenas for players to engage in combat.
Akin to other massive fighter franchises such as Super Smash Bros., combat gameplay in MultiVersus consists of the player having to deal significant amounts of damage to an opponent using a variety of abilities, in turn making the opponent more susceptible to being knocked out of the map boundaries and eventually being eliminated. Given this familiar gameplay formula and its wacky cast of characters, MultiVersus has made waves within the fighting game community and beyond upon its free-to-play release.
As a freely available title, MultiVersus has predictably opted for seasonal battle passes at its main form of monetization, with these incremental in-game seasons also acting as a way to implement any post-launch content, such as new maps and playable characters. With MultiVersus nearing the six-month anniversary of its release, it is somewhat understandable that the title has lost some steam of the initial hype and community engagement that it possessed closer to its launch. However, after recent developments at The Game Awards, MultiVersus may have been given a new lease of life.
MultiVersus at The Game Awards
The annual presentation of The Game Awards recently took place on December 9, awarding a huge plethora of different titles with deserved awards while also acting as a platform for upcoming titles to announce themselves to the gaming world. One of the most anticipated events in the gaming industry, some of the year's most influential titles were honored at the ceremony, with the likes of Elden Ring winning Game Of The Year.
One of the most commendable aspects of The Game Awards is the wide-spanning nature of its offered awards, covering a huge array of genres across the industry. The award for the Best Fighting Game was a contentious one this year, but one that saw MultiVersus be crowned champion. Given the growing reputation of The Game Awards and the high-profile content of the event, rewards like this can prove to be invaluable for a game's publicity, which will hopefully be the case for MultiVersus thanks to its success during the show.
It has been reported that this year's Game Awards once again broke viewership records, peaking at over 3.4 million concurrent viewers. Of course, a lot of this attention will have been placed on MultiVersus' time in the spotlight, opening up the title for a huge potential catchment of players, either returning or brand-new. Given the continuous post-launch content of the title and its growing roster of recognizable fighters, it can be said that MultiVersus is more than deserving of a potential resurgence.
MultiVersus is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
