There's not really been another sensation recently like MultiVersus. The upcoming free-to-play brawler, first unveiled last November after a hail of rumors and leaks, has all the hallmarks of a Super Smash Bros. Ultimate clone, but the game is aiming to be something different. Pairing esteemed characters from Warner Bros' vast library against each other, the game feels like a brought-to-life dream match. A closed alpha is already underway, with an open Beta scheduled for July, and word of mouth already hints at a game that has the potential to be something truly special.
Ahead of the game's closed alpha test, CBR had an opportunity to get hands-on with the game and discuss what we experienced with Daniel Kraft, the principal developer for freshman developer Player First Games. Daniel touched on what makes the broad appeal of MultiVersus work, why the game is so important to today's scene and just when players can finally get their hands on The Iron Giant.
Comic Book Resources: Daniel, for our readers who may not be familiar, what's your role on MultiVersus?
Daniel Kraft, Player First Games: I'm the principal developer, and I do a mixed bag of tricks. Anything from animation to game design - I touch on a lot of different aspects of the game.
MultiVersus is a huge free-to-play experience, with characters from many different properties mixing and mingling together. How hard was it to find the right balance between those properties and how they interact with each other?
I mean, it's always there. There are challenges in every part of the development process, but it's been a fun challenge. WB has such a wide breadth of characters to choose from, and it's hard to pinpoint which ones are the best or which ones fit or what we can do with them. Our main focus is making sure that we can get the game at a healthy spot. There's a certain aspect of the game that we need to fill, and we have to find what character fits with that aspect. We try to get them in the game and make them feel as much like themselves as we can.
In MultiVersus, there's a unique class system that many fighting games don't have, with players split into five classes: Bruiser, Tank, Support, Assassin and Mage. How does the class system flesh out the gameplay?
The class system is mostly there for informational purposes. It's a reference point for people who are jumping in the game to get a quick idea of how that character generally plays. It's not there to force characters to play in a certain direction but to give the player an idea. If you're a tank, that doesn't mean that you're going to do the exact same things as other tanks. A brawler won't do the exact same things as other brawlers. However, you'll have a general idea of that character's playstyle, so you can say, hey, I want to get in and fight, or I want to be more supportive or do quick damage or play a ranged character. It's more to give players the idea that this is the general part of the game they're hanging out in.
Most arena brawlers are built around free-for-all gameplay, but MultiVersus puts a strong focus on 2v2 matches upfront. Why focus on 2v2 rather than FFA or a traditional 1v1 match?
We wanted to push the social aspect of gameplay, and 2v2 fits that better than a standard 1v1 match. It's much more fun to jump into a game with a friend than it is to play by yourself, and we wanted to encourage that. We started from the ground up with 2v2 in mind, so our characters have cooperative mechanics. Wonder Woman can dash to an ally to shield them, or Jake can become a house that allies can jump off of, that sort of thing. We really want to push that from the start because we wanted to push that social aspect of gaming.
One of the game's biggest surprises was Reindog, a completely original character. What went into creating a new fighter who could hold their own against Warner Bros' most iconic characters?
Reindog stems from us wanting to make a fun, cute character, but he also fits in that we wanted to make a really strong support character. We were able to just start from the mechanics and just move from there to make a strong support-focused character. In the long term, we want to make sure that the game is healthy, and we want to bring enjoyment to players as best we can. Sometimes that means making a new character, and other times that's taking iconic characters that WB has. We wanted to make sure that fans know we could introduce original characters to the game in the future as well.
It's interesting to hear that more new characters could be coming down the road, but the licensed fighters are the big appeal for players. What went into choosing which licenses to use and which characters to pull from the respective brands? How did the team settle on this starting roster?
A lot of effort went into the starting roster. We wanted to get very iconic characters, of course, and we wanted to get DC representation. We have Batman and Superman, Wonder Woman, Harley, and some really hard-hitting characters. We also wanted to make sure that we could hit a lot of things.
From an art and style design point of view, we wanted to make sure we could get the live-action characters to fit in, so we put in Arya Stark from Game of Thrones. We also wanted to grab characters from a large group of things and make them work together, so it wasn't just, hey, this is going to be solely focused on a certain style of character. We wanted to make sure it was wide enough that anybody could have someone that they could see themselves playing. We didn't want to focus too much on one aspect of player thought. Certain people are going to be drawn to edge guarding characters; certain people are going to be drawn to really cute, cuddly creatures or fun and wacky characters. We want to make sure there is someone in there for everybody.
I am glad you mentioned the art style because it's a really unique, interesting look for the game. What was the process for taking these characters with 50, 60 years of history in both animation and live-action and making them all fit in the same world?
Our art director, John, is incredible. He came in and put us on the right track. John's got a great vision for the game visually, and it helps to set in stone the direction that we needed to go. It was a lot of fun animating and doing research on our characters. We really made sure to capture how they act and how they express themselves. I worked on Tom & Jerry both as an animator and as a designer. You watch a lot of old cartoons to make sure that you get it just right. It's a lot of, oh, yeah, this is how they would swing this, or this is what they do here. You just have to saturate yourself in the media to make sure that you're really hitting the character.
Tom & Jerry are an interesting pair to talk about, as even in a game where Bugs Bunny can fight Arya Stark, they feel like the odd men out. Can you tell us more about what went into making them fit MultiVersus?
Tom and Jerry are definitely a classic! Approaching them, we really wanted to focus on this idea that they're always fighting each other. They're never really worried about anybody else, and we tried to push that into the gameplay. Tom is always trying to get Jerry; Jerry's always trying to get Tom. Instead of fighting Superman, they're fighting each other, and Superman is getting in the way. They're beaten up by Superman because they're more focused on beating each other.
Did you have a favorite Tom & Jerry episode or gag that was referenced in the game?
There is an episode where they play tennis, and that is directly referenced in the game. I really just watched a bunch of episodes, and they all sort of blend together so far as which episode is which. It was definitely something where you get an idea, and then you try to make sure that it works; sometimes, you get inspired by what would be a really cool mechanic in the game; other times, it's by trying to find a way to make something work for a character.
MultiVersus uses a lot of mechanics. Harley lays a lot of traps, Arya has her face steal mechanic. Batman & Velma both rely heavily on cooldowns. What went into finding the right balance between how the characters interact with each other?
With character creation, we wanted to make sure that everyone is unique. We don't want to have any carbon copies of a character; they should all play differently from each other. That comes with the burden of balancing, which is just a lot of time and tweaking. Cooldown is one way to do that, and you can use it to push things to be more extreme because they're not on the screen all the time. That gives you a way to balance some of those more exciting moves.
Speaking of balancing characters, I was most interested in seeing how Iron Giant meshes with the other fighters…but he's not in the Technical Alpha! Can you tell us anything about how Iron Giant plays, or are your lips sealed?
Pretty sealed. However, I can tell you that the Iron Giant will be in open beta, so come back in July. He'll be here.
The fighting game genre has been slowly testing out a free-to-play scheme for a while, but it's usually supplemented with expensive cosmetics and paid DLC characters. MultiVersus is unusual in that it appears a lot of the content can genuinely be unlocked for free. Why go for that over a traditional pay structure with a season pass?
We wanted MultiVersus to be free-to-play so that we could open up the game to as many players as possible. Again, we really want this game to be social, and we want you to be able to play with your friends. It's all about removing the barrier to entry so that it's really easy to get your friends to play a game. If they can just jump on and play and don't have to commit to it, they're more likely to try it out. We wanted that because we wanted to bring as many people into the game as we could. It makes the game healthier long term when there are more players, meaning there are more people to play against. It just felt like the right choice for the game.
Developed by Player First Games and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, MultiVersus releases for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and Microsoft Windows in 2022. An open beta is scheduled for July 2022.