Sadly, this kind of reaction to negative gaming news has become all too predictable. After Warner Bros. confirmed Season 5 of platform fighter MultiVersus will be its last, anonymous online comments placed the blame at the feet of game director Tony Huynh. Nothing in them has been verified or may even be verifiable since they are anonymous comments. That didn't stop the Internet's worst elements from threatening violence against Huynh.
The game is also being review bombed on Steam, going from a mostly positive rating on Steam to mostly negative in the span of a single weekend. It's a sad ending for a game that won Fighting Game of the Year at the 2022 Game Awards.
MultiVersus had so much hype at launch, with its star-studded roster looking to give Smash Bros. a run for its money. But player numbers cratered due to a lack of single player content and little communication from developer Player First Games. All of a sudden in 2023, PFG took the controversial step of announcing that the whole release had been an open beta, and the game would go away to return in 2024.
That bizarre move, as you might expect, did little to inspire confidence in the product. The fighter that returned was a worse product in the eyes of many players. MultiVersus had lost so much of its early momentum, and never really regained it. After a brief spike in the player base upon return, within a month numbers had dipped again.
Warner Bros. announced it had lost more than $100 million on the fighter, along with the more than the $200 million it flushed down the drain on Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. WB's plan going forward will focus on four gaming franchises: Harry Potter, Batman, Mortal Kombat, and Game of Thrones.
Many of Multiversus' critics would argue that if the fighter had focused on those four properties to begin with, the game might have been in better shape. Batman was well represented in the game, while Arya Stark was the only GoT character to appear. Despite Harry Potter being one of WB's core franchises, none of its characters ever entered the game. No MK fighters will ever arrive either.
The game's final season launches February 4, featuring Aquaman and Lola Bunny as its final two fighters. It will go permanently offline May 30, but will still be playable in single player and local multiplayer.