Finally we can determine some serious battles! (Early Thoughts on Multiversus!)

    Just off the heels of Smash Bros's final DLC being released, there was a Nickelodeon fighting game that was similar enough for people to speculate that it could be the "Smash-Killer." These people were mostly joking, and I don't think it was ever a serious suggestion that this new platform-fighter would dethrone the reigning champ, but there was a question lingering in the air. Will there be any more games in the near future to feed off of the hype that was fired by the constant 3 year long stream of DLC after Smash Ultimate's release? That answer was given pretty soon after, in the form of leaks for a Warner Bros. fighting game. It seemed like every day, we got some new nugget of information about a new character or IP that would be included, and now that it is actually confirmed to be coming out next year, I'd like to talk a little bit about it. This won't be nearly as long as my other posts as I've been busy this week with all of the Thanksgiving festivities, but also there isn't much that is known about this game, so there's not too much that I can tell you!

Truly a motley crew!

An Intellectual Property battle begins anew!

    Warner Bros. has recently started making movies where they cross over all of their different properties. It's a pretty cool practice, though it loses some of the charm after the first time they pulled that trick. Just in recent memory, they did this practice in the Lego Batman Movie, Ready Player One, and Space Jam 2. Even before that, they published Lego Dimensions, where they crossed over tons of properties, including some that WB doesn't own, such as Ghostbusters and Sonic the Hedgehog. The most recent usage of this style is Multiversus, a free-to-play platform fighter where you can pit Superman or Harley Quinn versus the likes of Bugs Bunny or Arya Stark from Game of Thrones. This game looks to be pretty cool, and the promise of voice acting for the characters that are included is a head and shoulders above Nickelodeon All Stars Brawl in my book. This game is Free-to-Play, so I'm certainly expecting for there to be lots of microtransactions, but I hope they're not too egregious, maybe just some cosmetics, and I'm hoping that characters won't be locked behind a paywall. I am curious that in addition to a bunch of obvious and well known characters from beloved IPs, there is also an original character named Reindog that according to the website is the, "Fluffy Guardian of Zanifeer's Royal Family and the 6th wearer of the Gem of Power." Not sure exactly what that means, but he is facing off against "the Nothing," suggesting some sort of overarching story, which makes me really excited for the concept. How are they going to put Bugs Bunny and Arya Stark in the same story? I thought it was weird back in Lego Batman 3 whenever Daffy Duck showed up in a Green Lantern costume and called himself the Green Loontern, but I'm hoping this game leans into that same wackiness. I'll take a moment here to list the characters that will be appearing in this game so far. We have Arya Stark, Batman, Bugs Bunny, Finn and Jake from Adventure Time, Steven and Garnet from Steven Universe, Harley Quinn, the aforementioned Reindog, Shaggy from Scooby-Doo, Superman, Tom and Jerry (as one character), and Wonder Woman. Quite a cast of characters, huh? I would love to see all of these characters interacting, and I'm also excited for some of the updates that they promised in the future.

What sets this platform fighter apart from others?

    In the reveal stream, the lead person who was talking about this game discussed that the team would be adding many additions to the game over time. According to the website, the game will be, "...regularly updated with new characters, stages, modes, variants, in-game events, and more" which certainly brings the Smash Bros DLC slate to mind, as speculation is already running rampant. Warner Bros. has so many properties, I honestly don't even know who to predict here, but I would certainly love to see Rick from Casablanca go toe to toe with Fred Flintstone. I'm excited to follow this project, though I am curious to see how the gameplay actually works!

    I like the idea of this game a lot, but I do hope that there's some offline component for it, as that's the main way that I like playing games like Smash Bros. There's very little currently known about the gameplay other than the fact that it focuses mostly on 2v2 matches instead of free for all gameplay. I'm not sure exactly what that means other than they mentioned some kind of co-op move that teammates can use to fling each other at the opposing team. I'm not sure how well this will work in practice, but I'm certainly open to new ideas, and this game sounds like it is going to have quite a few of them. In addition to the 2v2 mode, they also have 1v1 and 4 player free for all. On the website they talk about their competitive matchmaking, and also the fact that the game will support cross-play, which is really one of the biggest selling points for a game of this type, especially since Smash Bros. doesn't have good online play at all, and has to rely on the Nintendo Online servers.

    I'm certainly curious to see how this game turns out, I'm not getting my expectations up too high though. It seems unlikely that it will meet the high expectations of a Smash Bros. game, but I'm hopeful that it will at least be some fun to play with friends. You certainly can't beat the price of being free, although it does mean we'll have monetization creeping in in more hidden ways. Let's all just pray that they don't try to sell a skin for a character for $40 (looking at you, Pokemon Unite).

    Thanks so much for reading this post, friends, I know that this is a really short post due to festivities occurring this week, but I think it gets the point across. I should point out that the website has more information if you're looking for even more interesting tidbits on this release for next year! I'll put a link to the website right here if you're interested in the game, and you can even sign up for the early playtests if you're ready to jump on the WB bandwagon while you're there! I hope you all had a happy thanksgiving yesterday, and I'll talk to you soon! This is Jonathan, your Self-Proclaimed Platform Fighter, signing off for now!