Surprise! The hit fighting game Multiversus was only in 'open beta' and now it's shutting down until sometime next year
pcgamer.comMultiversus(opens in new tab) is going offline in June and won't be back until sometime in early 2024, and the reason is very strange: Warner Bros. Games says the game was never actually released but only in open beta.
The Smash Bros.-style fighting game features characters from the DC Universe like Batman and Wonder Woman, from Cartoon Network shows like Adventure Time and Steven Universe, Scooby-Doo, Looney Tunes, and other Warner Bros. properties. Now, the game's creator Player First Games says that the open beta will end in June as developers prepare for the full release next year.
It's weird because Multiversus has been available since July 2022, during which time it's racked up more than 93,000 Steam(opens in new tab) user reviews, adding up to a «very positive» overall rating. (It's also available on the Epic Store(opens in new tab).) It racked up an enviable player count(opens in new tab) out of the gate, and we liked it quite a bit ourselves, calling it «a bang-up job of laying the foundations for a fantastic platform fighter that has the potential to blossom into something amazing» in our 78% review(opens in new tab). And there's been a lot of progress on the game since then, including not just one but two seasons(opens in new tab) complete with buyable season passes, high-profile crossovers(opens in new tab), and a $100,000 pro tournament(opens in new tab) at Evo.
It's also fair to say that Warner hasn't exactly played up the «open beta» angle publicly, either. A Twitter search, for instance, indicates that the last reference to it came in an August 2022 tweet(opens in new tab) saying that «the launch of the open beta is just the beginning.»
But now that's all going away. Game director Tony Huynh said the
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