MultiVersus has officially gone offline, with the full game not set to return until 2024, after almost 12 months of open beta access. The Warner Bros. platform fighter, which features a Super Smash Bros-style crossover of characters from IPs ranging from Looney Tunes to Rick and Morty, first released for open beta downloads on July 26th 2022.
Those who still have MultiVersus in their collection can continue to play it offline with “limited” access to the training room and local matches, with previously-locked content temporarily available until it makes a return next year. Once fully released, players will have to unlock and purchase any content that they didn’t have in their inventories prior to the shutdown.
The impending shutdown was announced on March 27th in a blog post, with Player First Games co-founder and director Tony Huynh sharing that the,” Open Beta has been an important learning opportunity for us and a stepping stone to the next phase of MultiVersus.”
During our hiatus, all unlockable content will be temporarily available for your enjoyment. Once MultiVersus returns for the game’s launch in 2024, your account inventory will return to how it was prior to June 25.
For more info: https://t.co/XKuxAnd26j— MultiVersus (@multiversus) June 22, 2023
“We know there’s still a lot of work to do,” he said during the post, highlighting the “content cadence” for new characters, maps, and modes, as well as matchmaking improvements and updates to the progression system based on player feedback. ‘To do this the right way, we will be closing the MultiVersus Open Beta on June 25, 2023.”
The sundowning of the Open Beta comes as no surprise given the steady decline of active players, with VGC reporting in February that PC player activity had dropped almost 99% from its July 2022 debut, when player activity peaked at 153,000 online users during the first week of launch. The drop is likely due to the lack of new game content or news since early January, likely due to the team working towards the game’s full release.
Given that MultiVersus included microtransactions even during this period, some players are frustrated by the extended wait to access their purchases once again, with a wait time of at least six months based on the projected early 2024 full release (let’s hope there’s no delays or this wait time could balloon even further).
For now, players keen to see Tom and Jerry absolutely delete Arya Stark in a match will have to wait, or resign themselves to local play. Here’s hoping further news on a concrete release date follows soon.
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