Morty, from Rick & Morty, will be arriving in the game on August 23 – he wasn’t part of the roster when the Season kicked off. His abusive, drunk, genius grandfather, Rick, will join the brawl later down the line (no dates have been announced at the time of writing). On top of that, Season 1 promises two new modes – Classic Arcade and Ranked – and new cosmetics, besides. But, when it all started on Monday, we only got a new battle pass. At least we got both the free track and the premium one. But as big, new launches go for games with over 10 million players… it’s a bit light, no? There was no sense of jubilation, of achievement, of one of the biggest games of the year moving out of its pre-Season and into its first proper series. It was a wet whimper, not the explosive bang many were expecting. But when you consider that we’ve got until November 15 to enjoy Season 1, you start to understand the cadence that Player First Games is going for. By all accounts, we’re liable to see more characters between now and then – the Season kicked off with the promise of Rick and Morty, then we know we’re getting Stripe and Black Adam, and if I was a betting person I’d say we’ll see the rumoured Wicked Witch of the West and Beetlejuice by Halloween. They’re the perfect characters for a spooky tie-in, after all. The two new modes are probably going to appear somewhere in the middle of mid-November and now – a little something to zhuzh up the game once this initial whorl of interest dies down and people move onto all those other games coming out in the fall (oh, wait). The idea of an increasingly difficult gauntlet of bots programmed to dodge my projectiles and spike me into the pits of hell actually thrills me: at least it’s a new way to grind out my daily challenges. And that leads me neatly onto why I’m satisfied with MultiVersus Season 1 launch, despite everything I’ve outlined up top: the game rewards you well for winning, for logging in and playing, and for experimenting. I am on the premium battle pass (for my sins), and the fact I know I can earn at least 600xp a day progress towards my ultimate goal – a new Garnet skin at level 20 – keeps me coming back for more. The 600xp bonuses I may get from completing the weekly challenges that come in threes every seven days is another little hook that gets in my brain and tugs me back into logging on as soon as I finish work every day, too. And on top of that, there’s simply how goddamn fun the game is: even when I lose, I feel like I’m having a great time, because there’s no awful balancing issues that are making me want to stab myself (or a Taz) in the neck. With players not being toxic – and being pressured actively into being nice thanks to the genius toast mechanic – I’ve even found myself making friends. There was a particularly good French Garnet player I met the other day that rhymed really nicely with me, and we set about doing some double-Garnet domination for about an hour before I had to leave. I now have a new French friend in my Xbox list, and when we’re online together, we resume our Estelle-flavoured bullying of the local cartoon characters. I’ve not played a fighting game like MultiVersus in a long time. Between the developers rewarding me for coming back, players that seem dead set on making the game a joy to play, and the genuinely impressive mechanics of it all in the first place, I don’t have a bad word to say about MultiVersus. I can’t wait for Morty to arrive, Plumbus in hand, and I cannot wait to see what kind of portal-based chicanery you’ll be able to pull off with Rick. And I’m more than happy to wait for them, because I want this magic to last as long as possible. Long live MultiVersus. If you are just getting started in MultiVersus, we have all sorts of guides to help you get the hang of it. Our MultiVersus guides tell you all about toast, the best mods to use, how to unlock perks and the best ones to choose, or the best characters for 1v1 and 2v2.
