MultiVersus
Batman vs Bugs Bunny: 20 million players, then two shutdowns
MultiVersus was Warner Bros.'s free-to-play platform fighter in which Batman, Shaggy, Bugs Bunny and Arya Stark fought Smash Bros.-style, developed by Player First Games. Its open beta in July 2022 reached 20 million players in under a month, then emptied; the game went offline in June 2023, relaunched on 28 May 2024, and was shut down for good on 30 May 2025 after five seasons, with only offline play left behind.
Timeline [edit]
- 2021
-
18 November 2021
Feature
MultiVersus is announced
A free Smash-style fighter with Warner's characters.
- 2022
-
26 July 2022
Launch
Open beta
After a week of early access. Ten million players in a fortnight.
-
22 August 2022
Peak
20 million players
The best-selling game of July 2022 in the US, over 150,000 concurrent on Steam.
-
8 December 2022
other
Fighting game of the year
The Game Awards 2022.
- 2023
-
25 June 2023
Decline
The beta goes offline
The game is switched off to be finished. The audience resets.
- 2024
-
28 May 2024
Revival
Relaunch
Unreal Engine 5, new modes; Warner buys Player First Games in July.
- 2025
-
31 January 2025
Shutdown announced
Season 5 will be the last
Online play will end on 30 May 2025.
-
30 May 2025
Shutdown
Servers close
Offline and local play remain for those who installed it.
How it looked [edit]
The site through time
Browse multiversus.com as it was, via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine:
Ownership [edit]
Key figures [edit]
| Metric | Value | As of | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Registered accounts ▲ | 20 million | 22 August 2022 | Reported Announced by Warner Bros. Games in August 2022, less than a month into the open beta |
Confirmed official figures · Reported media, cites a source · Estimated analyst or our estimate
Why it shut down [edit]
Official line: MultiVersus's open beta drew 20 million players in a month in 2022 and then lost most of them; Warner Bros. took it offline in June 2023 to finish it and relaunched it on 28 May 2024, but the audience did not return. On 31 January 2025 the publisher announced that Season 5 would be the last and that online play would end on 30 May 2025, leaving only local and offline modes.
Our analysis: A free Smash Bros. with Warner's characters was an obviously good idea and 20 million people agreed for about six weeks. Then a thin roster, slow content and netcode complaints emptied the servers, and the decision to switch the game off for a year to rebuild it, unusual and honest, also reset the audience to zero. The relaunch had to win everyone twice and could not.
History [edit]
Warner's Smash
Warner Bros. Games announced MultiVersus on 18 November 2021: a free-to-play platform fighter in the mould of Super Smash Bros., built by Player First Games in Los Angeles, with a roster drawn from everything Warner owned. Batman and Superman fought Bugs Bunny and Shaggy from Scooby-Doo, Arya Stark from Game of Thrones and Tom and Jerry, with online 2v2 as the headline mode and rollback netcode as the technical pitch.
The open beta opened on 26 July 2022 after a week of early access, and it was briefly the biggest game in the world. It passed 10 million players in a fortnight and 20 million by 22 August, was the best-selling game of July 2022 in the US on the strength of its founder packs, and peaked at over 150,000 concurrent players on Steam alone. Rick and Morty, LeBron James and the Iron Giant joined the roster, and it won fighting game of the year at the Game Awards that December.
Offline to finish it
By early 2023 the Steam count had fallen from six figures to a few hundred. Players cited a slow drip of characters, balance swings and matchmaking, and the sense that a "beta" was being monetised like a finished game. In March 2023 Player First announced something almost unheard of: the beta would close on 25 June 2023 and the game would go offline entirely while it was rebuilt, to return in early 2024.
It relaunched on 28 May 2024 on Unreal Engine 5 with new modes and a rebuilt progression, and Warner bought Player First Games outright that July. The launch numbers were solid and the decline was fast again; the relaunch also drew complaints about grind and pricing that the studio spent the summer patching.
Season 5
On 31 January 2025 Warner Bros. Games and Player First announced that Season 5, beginning 4 February, would be the final one and that MultiVersus would go offline on 30 May 2025; real-money purchases stopped that day. The last season added Aquaman and Lola Bunny. Online play ended on schedule at 9 a.m. Pacific on 30 May, the game left the stores, and Player First Games was closed. Anyone who had installed it kept offline matches against bots and local players.
The domain today
multiversus.com now redirects to Warner Bros. Games' home page.
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Sources [edit]
- Warner Bros. crossover fighter MultiVersus officially announced Eurogamer 18 November 2021 [archived]
- MultiVersus crossed 20 million players in less than a month Forbes 22 August 2022 [archived]
- MultiVersus was only in open beta, and now it's shutting down until sometime next year PC Gamer 27 March 2023 [archived]
- Warner Bros.' MultiVersus finally has a re-release date IGN 11 March 2024 [archived]
- MultiVersus update: Season 5 will be the final season Player First Games / Warner Bros. Games 31 January 2025
- MultiVersus as a live service has been officially shut down EventHubs 1 June 2025 [archived]
Last verified: 15 August 2026. Spotted an error? Suggest an edit (corrections with sources are reviewed and applied).