Multiversus - Warner Bros Enters The Platform Fighting Ring! 2022 WorldWide Release

[Chili Dawg]

Bruh the score is like a bazillion to one.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

2 hours ago, Chili Dawg said:

Bruh the score is like a bazillion to one.

Still though, he has been beaten, by others. Just saiyan.

[Mr. Ion]

This sounds like an interesting project, especially being free-to-play. I hope it doesn't devolve into the predatory monetization that the industry seems to revel in nowadays, in the vein of something like Pokemon Unite or something.

I have recently gotten into Smash Ultimate and I've really been enjoying it. I haven't played Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl. From what I've seen though, I think it would be a fun game and reviews on the core gameplay alone seem to indicate that it's very fun and kinetic, with a speed and rhythm to match Melee. At the same time, as more and more companies seem interested in creating their own platform fighters, something other than characters from various media conglomerates must be done to differentiate each game. Smash is the first and obviously has a level of prominence and polish not seen in other video games, fighting or otherwise. Nick All-Star Brawl was derided, especially among casual players, for its lack of voice acting and other various cosmetic flourishes. Basically what I'm trying to say is that if you want to create competition and longevity, especially with the behemoth that is Smash Bros., you have to give the players a completely new experience, which I hope this game does. If it's any consolation, ULTRA INSTINCT SHAGGY IS NOW CANON.

[batson]

Indeed. Ultra Instinact Shaggy is canon.

Certain cultural historians have for a while now spoken of a "Gutenberg parentheses". This means the idea that the era of human storytelling that started with the invention of the printing press in the 1400's is now drawing to a close. What defined the era before Gutenberg was a lack of authority in terms of storytelling; there was usually no one version of a text that everyone agreed to be the "real" version (religious texts such as the Bible being exceptions). Any random persons story about King Arthur or Robin Hood, or any random persons interpretation of those characters, were as valid as the next. Then Gutenberg introduced the printing press and books became every mans property, leading to an era where specific stories about about characters (often times those written by the creator of those characters) were considered "real" or "canonical", in contrast to the previous era where any orally transmitted story were as "real" as any other. The canonical adventures of Robinsson Crusoe were those written by Daniel Defoe. The canonical adventures of Sherlock Holmes were those written by Arthur Conan Doyle, ect. And perhapes just as importantly, the only interpretations of those characters that "mattared" were those described in canon. It didn't matter if some random person wrote a story in which Sherlock Holmes likes to wear womens clothing. If it's not canon, then it's not "real".

The idea behind the Guntenberg parentheses is that this described era started to meet it's end with the popularization of the internet. With the internet, a random persons interpretation of a character could be just as important as the interpretation by the characters' owner. Is Pepe the Frog really just a frog who likes to pee with the door open, or is he a far-right shitlord? Well he certainly isn't being banned from colleges due to enjoying peeing with the door open, that's for sure.

And now we get Ultra Instinct Shaggy in an offical video game. An interpretation of a copyrighted character that was thought up entirely by a random person on the internet making a funny Youtube video. Shaggy still has an owner (TimeWarner) but they no longer have exclusive right in molding that character. Their inclusion of a fan interpretation of him into offical media is a surrender to the collective ownership of that character that the world in practice holds.

Well Johannes Gutenberg old friend, you can be proud. It's not every human that gives birth to an era that lasts for over 500 years. But every era must meet and end eventually. Rest easy, and leave the future of human storytelling to the masses.

...

Was that too melodramatic? Sorry about that. But as both a historian (got a masters yall!) and a nerd, Ultra Instinct Shaggy makes me inspired.

[MetalSkulkBane]

Fascinating theory, but is it though?

It's not like Ultra Instinct Shaggy  is better known than real Shaggy. You must know real Shaggy to get the joke of Ultra Instinct Shaggy.

So how is that different from those Sherlock Holmes fan books?

Or take Merry Poppins, that everyone knows a movie, but few touched the book. Each version was made by different people. Is the fact that Merry Poppins movie is legal part of the franchise and Ultra Instinct Shaggy used to be a fan work, that important distinction?

[batson]

Well, I will admit the idea of considering the entire 1450-2000 era as a time when "only the official version matters" is obviosuly a grave oversimplification with tons and tons of exceptions.

I think what unites the era though is that it was an era than can be described as one where a few people had a significantly easier time spearing his/her version of a story or a character than regular people did. In previous eras, when everything was transmitted orally, it was basically impossible for any one person or company to be like "Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and make the version of this story that more people will experience than any other version". That all started with printing, when the ability to influence the masses with specific texts (whether they be fiction or any other written work) became something that the rich and powerful could do, or those lucky authors who managed to get the attention of the rich and powerful, but very few other people could. Of course untill the 19th century there was no such thing as copyright, so it's true that any author who had the means of getting a book published in the first place could write his/her own story of any character they wanted and nobody could stop them. But even then, the vast majority of the population didn't have these means, and so their versions of stories or characters could seldom become widespread.

The internet was the invention that leveled the playing field when it comes to having your stories heard, or your pictures seen, or your opinions expressed, for the first time in centuries. Before the 15th century even the powerful had a hard time actually communicating to the masses. This is easy to forget nowadays, but back in say the middle ages even the king of a country would have an incredibly hard time telling a story to a large number of people. In that sense, storytelling was somewhat democratic. After printing however the people with the money and connections could tell their versions of stories and express their opinions in a way that was brutally unfair compared to what most people could do. Then centuries later, the internet broke societal barriers like a tank missile, with normal people now being able to communicate to hundreds or thousands or millions of others.

And sure, even today the versions of stories or characters that are being put out by the rich and powerful (in this case usually meaning the poeple who owns the rights to these things) tend to get far far far more exposure than those versions put out by average people. But the things is that this is at the very least no longer a given. Ultra Instinct Shaggy is indeed based on the existing character, that's true. But Ultra Insticnt Shaggy is nevertheless more well known and influential than any new version of the original character that's been put out by the company who owns him in like, what, 20 years? I can tell you more people know Ultra Instinct Shaggy than they know the version featured in the dark and gritty rebooted DC comics that came out a few years ago, even though the latter is offical and the former is (well, was) not. And then you got characters like Slender man, that wasn't even created by a rich company to begin with, but rather by a random nobody, and yet managed to become one of the most memorable new characters of the 21st century just by average joes contributing to the characters lore.

Phew, that was a long one. But in conclusion, I think the Gutenberg parenthesis isn't a waterproof way to look at things, but at the very least not an idea completly without merrit.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Well, it's certainly nice to see the voice acting getting this much of a boost.

Hope we'll get some great character interactions out of this game.

[batson]

Voice acting and Ultra Instinct Shaggy are the two things that make this game completely steal the thunder from that Nickelodeon fighting game. Which is kinda sad to me personally due to the fact that the Nick fighting game could help introduce the 1987 versions of the Ninja Turtles, which I love, to younger audiences. And I mean, it's still gonna do that but, let's be real, people would probably be talking about and meme-ing the Nickelodeon game a whole lot more if so many peoples sense of semi-ironic pop culture appreciation didn't turn towards Multiversus instead.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

18 hours ago, batson said:

Voice acting and Ultra Instinct Shaggy are the two things that make this game completely steal the thunder from that Nickelodeon fighting game.

Well that and, more actual costumes, a bit better looking gameplay, more promising presentation as a whole, the list goes on.

That's not to say that NASB was never good. It's just a game that got overhyped as supposedly the "Smash killer", and like most games overhyped like that, it paid the consequences when a much better looking game moseyed on in.

[StaticMania]

New + More game-play footage

Just a short showing of how the game looks when it's not slowed down for the trailer.

[SonicBlastAwesome]

Where is Nintendo Switch version yet?

[Teoskaven]

Official cinematic trailer, confirms Iron Giant and Taz:

https://www.gematsu.com/2022/05/multiversus-cinematic-trailer

I signed for the closed alpha test, we'll see if i can get a copy. Beta arrives in July.

[Dejimon11]

Is the closed alpha test only for PC?

[Teoskaven]

Nope: https://www.gematsu.com/2022/05/multiversus-closed-alpha-test-set-for-may-19-to-27

It even has cross-play and rollback.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

I wonder if this game will have a nice story mode to go with it.

[batson]

Pretty good writing in that teaser/intro-sequence! The Iron Giant's brief apperance was spot on. Almost made me a little teary eyed.

Also, ngl, Harley Quinn is even hotter than usual. To me at least. Don't shame me.

[SupahBerry]

Quite the call and response between announcing Hugh Neutron for Nick and this, I see

[Chili Dawg]

3 hours ago, batson said:

The Iron Giant's brief apperance was spot on. 

If it was spot on, he wouldn't be in a fighting game.

That's like his thing. 

 

[mayday2592]

If anything this seems to be getting more attention from my causal/non gaming friends and family than Smash ever did lol. One of my coworkers is mind-blown that Steven Universe, Shaggy, and Batman will be able to fight each other in a game.

[Jango]

I'm playing then open beta and yeah, game's really addicting. Never played Smash in my life, but the clones? Man, I love me some platform fighters. But... I'm glad you can use any character with any perk in local play, because literally every character is locked to play online (which is obviously the focus of MultiVersus, as the local play modes aren't even that easy to find in the menus lol).

At least the game gives you a chance to unlock WW pretty easily by just completing the basic tutorial and there are 4 other characters unlocked for free!.. because of an event apparently. Not sure if they'll stay unlocked after the event is over tho', that would be a punch in the dick as I'm nearly maxed out Superman. 

Well, it's a F2P at the end of day, so MTX are all over the place. There's a type of currency that I think can only be obtained with real life money, and many itens that can only be purchased with said currency, so forget unlocking everything without opening your wallet. At least they're all cosmetics anyways, althought I can see how you have ways to obtain perks with real money, and these do give advantages in battles, so yeah. It's not 100% not "pay 2 win". The regular currency, the coins, you get by completing daily challenges and playing online (don't expect to get many if you loose tho'), and it's kinda grindy. Also, there's even stuff that the game shows me I unlocked, but I can't claim UNLESS I buy the season pass with real life money "-Here's a cool Shaggy skin that you've just unlocked by playing the game!... For an additional of 15 bucks, of course!". I've played for hours and only got enough coins to unlock one new character. I'm not even gonna make comparisons to avoid getting endless quoted and derail the thread.

All in all, it's a fun game, with much love put it into it, hell, I'll commend WB Games for fully localizing it to brazilian portuguese WITH dubbing by the same voice actors from the cartoons and shows. That's reaaaaally cool, really cool and nostalgic. But since I rarely have people around to play this game locally, and the way of unlocking stuff is not that practical, I don't see myself really engaging in MultiVersus for that long. And since you always have to be connected to the internet to play (even in local and training modes), err...... I simply can't play the game today because it's lagging like hell. Maybe that "always connected" is a beta thing, I'm not really that familiar with betas and F2P games.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

2 hours ago, Jango said:

I'm playing then open beta and yeah, game's really addicting. Never played Smash in my life, but the clones? Man, I love me some platform fighters. But... I'm glad you can use any character with any perk in local play, because literally every character is locked to play online (which is obviously the focus of MultiVersus, as the local play modes aren't even that easy to find in the menus lol).

At least the game gives you a chance to unlock WW pretty easily by just completing the basic tutorial and there are 4 other characters unlocked for free!.. because of an event apparently. Not sure if they'll stay unlocked after the event is over tho', that would be a punch in the dick as I'm nearly maxed out Superman. 

Well, it's a F2P at the end of day, so MTX are all over the place. There's a type of currency that I think can only be obtained with real life money, and many itens that can only be purchased with said currency, so forget unlocking everything without opening your wallet. At least they're all cosmetics anyways, althought I can see how you have ways to obtain perks with real money, and these do give advantages in battles, so yeah. It's not 100% not "pay 2 win". The regular currency, the coins, you get by completing daily challenges and playing online (don't expect to get many if you loose tho'), and it's kinda grindy. Also, there's even stuff that the game shows me I unlocked, but I can't claim UNLESS I buy the season pass with real life money "-Here's a cool Shaggy skin that you've just unlocked by playing the game!... For an additional of 15 bucks, of course!". I've played for hours and only got enough coins to unlock one new character. I'm not even gonna make comparisons to avoid getting endless quoted and derail the thread.

All in all, it's a fun game, with much love put it into it, hell, I'll commend WB Games for fully localizing it to brazilian portuguese WITH dubbing by the same voice actors from the cartoons and shows. That's reaaaaally cool, really cool and nostalgic. But since I rarely have people around to play this game locally, and the way of unlocking stuff is not that practical, I don't see myself really engaging in MultiVersus for that long. And since you always have to be connected to the internet to play (even in local and training modes), err...... I simply can't play the game today because it's lagging like hell. Maybe that "always connected" is a beta thing, I'm not really that familiar with betas and F2P games.

Characters rotate weekly (last week’s being Shaggy, Taz, Jake, and Harley).

[Teoskaven]

https://www.gematsu.com/2022/08/multiversus-to-add-dcs-black-adam-stripe-from-gremlins-in-season-1

Black Adam makes sense to promote the movie, and Gremlins-related stuff was found in the data mining. Still, cool that the game is churning content at a decent rate.

[Teoskaven]

https://www.gematsu.com/2024/03/multiversus-launches-may-28

After roughly a year of hiatus, the game seems to be ready to launch at the end of May. While i understand the priority having to go to peformance and multiplayer netcode, i hope they spent the time to add a few new characters as well, but i guess we'll have to find out.

[Jango]

Damn, somehow I completely forgot about this game, lol

[Rabbitearsblog]

I'm surprised they are still updating this game.