MultiVersus launch peaks at 114,000 players despite controversial character restrictions
Warner Bros. fighter MultiVersus has finally relaunched after its beta ended last year, hitting a 24-hour peak of over 114,000 concurrent players.
The details:
According to SteamDB, the game's free-to-play relaunch yesterday drew a peak of 114,515 concurrent players, nearly 75% of its all-time peak of 153,433 set during its beta period. The game was initially released in beta in 2022 and remained available until April 2023, when its player base declined significantly and it began to transition to Unreal Engine 5.
Although players are pleased to see the game back in action, developer Player First Games has implemented some new character restrictions, which have sparked debate in the community. Characters must now be unlocked in the main game before they can be used in local multiplayer and training modes, which was previously not required. “Stuff like this is a nightmare for tournament play,” one Reddit user wrote. “The big ones can afford to buy all the characters for a ton of consoles, but any grass roots ones will have trouble. Even MK1 making you finish the story mode to get Havik is an issue.”
The full game release introduced new characters such as DC's Joker, Adventure Time's Banana Guard, and Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th, with Agent Smith from The Matrix arriving in a future update. Some of the characters had previously been datamined, prompting the game's director to express concern about the practice, calling it a "disservice" to players.
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