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Video Game / MultiVersus

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Stars Collide. Pies Fly.
MultiVersus is a free-to-play platform and mascot fighting game developed by Warner Bros. Games and Player First Games.

MultiVersus pits fighters from Warner Bros.' various properties, from DC Comics to Cartoon Network, in a primarily team-based fighting game. Team members work together and use each other's powers to defeat their opponents, such as being protected by Steven Universe's shield or burrowing through Bugs Bunny's tunnels. There is also a solo player option as well. The game's story has all of these worlds coming together to face the Nothing, which has begun to destroy the WB Multiverse.

The closed alpha for MultiVersus ran on May 19-27, 2022, which was followed by an open beta beginning July 26, 2022 (with early access beginning a week before that, on July 19th) and ending on June 25, 2023 before relaunching in full on May 28th, 2024. The game is available for the PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC.

Announcement Trailer; Cinematic Trailer; Open Beta Trailer; Gameplay Trailer; Website.

    Playable Characters 

    Maps 

MultiVersus contains examples of the following tropes:

  • 2½D: Similar to other games in the Platform Fighter genre, this game uses 3D models for its characters and environments, but movement is restricted to a 2D plane.
  • Adaptational Badass: The regular Shaggy of Scooby-Doo is a normal, non-powered human who has little fighting prowess (that time he was hypnotized aside). This Shaggy has limitless powers and strength that easily allow him to contest with the likes of Superman, as shown in the trailer. This is actually explained in his website blurb; during a case with the gang, he found a magical crystal and, thinking it was candy, tried to eat it.
  • Adaptational Wimp: For obvious reasons, Superman, Wonder Woman, Black Adam, and the Iron Giant have their flight abilities heavily downplayed in-game, though Superman, Black Adam, and the Giant can still glide for a limited amount (Superman via his air side special, Black Adam via his air up special, the Giant instead of a regular jump).
  • Addressing the Player: Clicking on your selected character while waiting for a match to start will have them interact with you, the implication being that you're their teammate, helping them in battle. The more friendly characters like Steven, Superman, or Shaggy will ask you what you need help with, the more serious characters like Batman, Black Adam, or Arya will get state they should be focusing on the upcoming fight, and the temperamental/ruder characters like Taz or Stripe will outright scream at you in annoyance.
    Shaggy: Hey man! Like, is there something you need?
    Arya: Are we training, or just having a chat?
    Stripe: GO AWAY!
    • This can also become a slight case of The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You if you select a more villainous character (such as Black Adam or the Black Lantern variants of Superman and Wonder Woman), as they can sometimes imply they can act outside of your control.
      Black Lantern Superman: You think you are powerful enough to control me?
  • Anti-Frustration Features:
    • Every character, costume, and perk is available to try in The Lab, giving you as much time as you need to try whatever you want out before deciding whether to unlock it.
    • All characters are available in local matches, making tournaments very easy to set up.
    • Characters who haven't been permanently unlocked yet will keep all progress you made with them should they leave Free Rotation, enabling you to pick up right where you left off with them when you do unlock them for good or they enter Free Rotation again.
    • Air attacks are never interrupted by landing - a character performing an air attack close to the ground will hover until the move completes, even for charged attacks. This makes performing air attacks at ground level significantly easier by removing the need for precise timing.
  • Armor-Piercing Attack: Most of the characters on the roster have moves that can break through super armor or shields, indicated by a purple glimmer. A perk called "Armor Crush" allows all fully charged attacks to do the same.
  • Art Evolution: Tony Huynh would confirm in the March 2024 re-launch announcement trailer that development on the game changed over from Unreal Engine 4 to Unreal Engine 5 between the closing of the Open Beta and the game's relaunch, causing the character models to become higher fidelity as a result.
  • Ascended Fanboy: The Iron Giant famously brought audiences to tears when it said "Superman..." right before it sacrifices its life to stop a nuclear warhead. In the cinematic trailer, the Giant meets Superman himself and even teams up with him.
  • Ascended Meme:
    • Shaggy powers himself up almost exactly akin to the "Ultra Instinct Shaggy" meme, and has a few lines referencing the fractional amounts of power he uses in said memes. The meme was also previously acknowledged in the Logo Joke for Mortal Kombat Legends: Battle of the Realms, along with SCOOB!'s official social media poster.
    • If Tom taunts while Jerry isn't with him, he shrugs the same way he does in the Shrugging Tom meme.
    • If LeBron doesn't have a basketball when using his neutral special move, he will instead attack with his infamous upset reaction to then-fellow Cleveland Cavaliers player J. R. Smith missing taking a shot during a critical moment of the 2018 NBA Finals.
    • One of Black Adam's Signature perks is named "The Hierarchy of Power" after Dwayne Johnson's memetic Character Catchphrase for the movie. He also has a Legendary profile icon◊ that references the Flying Black Adam meme.
    • Batman's Ugly Sweater variant depicts a Batmobile that lost its wheel, referencing the infamous "Batman Smells" version of the song "Jingle Bells".
  • Back-to-Back Poster: One of the promo images for the game is Batman and Shaggy posing back-to-back, Batman holding Shaggy's sandwich and Shaggy holding a batarang, both ready for a brawl.
  • Big Ball of Violence:
    • One of the promo arts for the game shows various characters engaging fighting each other, obscured in a giant dust cloud with various limbs sticking out (such as Garnet's gauntlet, Shaggy's hand holding a sandwich, Tom's hand holding Jerry, Bugs' ears, and Jake's fist).
    • The end of the cinematic trailer also features a big ball of violence involving most of the characters who appeared in said trailer.
    • In-game, Taz creates one for his up special that gradually grows in size.
  • Bowdlerise: Garnet's original losing animation from the alpha featured her turning to stone and poofing away. The open beta changes this to her meditating instead.
  • Casual Danger Dialogue: Since this game features characters addressing to each other during matches, this happens a lot, especially if the player taunts. To note some examples:
    • When DC characters are paired up, some will occasionally reference anecdotes from their careers and are familiar enough with each other to go by First-Name Basis (in regards to their civilian identities). Superman and Batman are naturally the most prone to do this, given their historical rivalry.
    Superman: Batman versus Superman, let's settle this once and for all!
    Batman: I don't have to be stronger than you, Clark. Just smarter.
    • Bugs Bunny is a natural at doing this, as always, generally making light of both his adversaries and predicaments.
    Bugs: *after getting a ring-out* We have ourselves a rabbit hater.
    Bugs: *about Taz* "I got a snack for ya! A double decker knuckle sandwich."
  • Collateral Damage: Tom and Jerry are mostly focused on fighting each other, it's just that everyone else is caught in the crossfire.
  • Company Cameo: PFG Team, one of the exclusive ringouts from the Founder's Pack includes the caped avatar and large purple P from Player First Games' logo, alongside other unknown figures that supposedly represent the team's main staff.
  • Continuity Nod: LeBron's website blurb and a couple of lines that Bugs says to him both indicate that this game's plot takes place after the events of Space Jam: A New Legacy.
  • Cuteness Proximity: Harley just squees over Taz and gives him the name "Slobber".
  • Darker and Edgier: The Black Lantern variants for Superman and Wonder Woman replace their kind and heroic natures with zombie-like demeanors and sinister voicelines, making these two variants the most villainous characters on the roster so far.
  • Demographic-Dissonant Crossover: Though most of the characters are from kid-friendly works such as Looney Tunes or franchises such as DC Comics that have been regularly adapted into kid-friendly formats, some of the characters include Arya Stark, from HBO's very adult Game of Thrones series, and the titular characters of [adult swim]'s Rick and Morty.
  • Famous, Famous, Fictional: Inverted in the "Jump Into the '90s Parody" trailer, where the announcer highlights some of the "made-up, make believe characters" playable in the game, being Shaggy, Bugs Bunny, and LeBron James.
  • Friendly Enemies: Tom and Jerry's character select animation shows the duo shaking hands while holding weapons behind their backs.
  • Game-Breaking Bug: The patch that introduced Stripe launched with a strange glitch wherein a saw blade from Stripe's side-special picked up by an ally would become glitched upon being picked up and cause the blade to hit hundreds of times at once upon being thrown and hitting an opponent. While sometimes this would only result in players receiving ludicrous amounts of damage in one split second, more often than not the game would crash and immediately quit the match the minute the glitched sawblade collided with an opponent.
  • Gameplay and Story Integration: A lot of the characters movesets are designed not just around their fighting style or what abilities they have, but rather their role or specific gimmick in their respective source material.
    • In Scooby-Doo, Velma is almost always the one who pieces together the clues and discovers who and why the culprit did it. This is reflected with her passive, which allows her to collect clues during gameplay to build up for a super move that summons the Mystery Machine to take the bag guys to prison (carry foes offstage).
    • Tom is always trying to catch Jerry in their shows and movies, and it's the same here. It's implied that neither of them are aware of the other fighters, they're too busy fighting each other, making everyone else collateral damage.
    • Bugs Bunny's whole moveset is designed around iconic cartoon tropes popularized by Looney Tunes, such as a Pie in the Face, an safe smashing into one's head, and of course, a big ol' mallet. His Up-Special even invokes a Brick Joke, where something introduced early on comes back around later, just like his Rocket. In a way, it's like every one of his matches is just another Looney Tunes short.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation: The usual Mogwai and Gremlin weakness to sunlight doesn't apply to Gizmo and Stripe here, as fights in sunny stages like Trophy's E.D.G.E. and the Tree Fort can happen without ill effect.
  • The Ghost: Several characters who currently aren't in the game in some form (not even as cameos) are merely referenced or otherwise name-dropped in dialogue. One especially notable case is Scooby-Doo, who was often mentioned by his friends Shaggy and Velma prior to his Scoobtober ringout animation's release on October 12, 2022.
  • Guide Dang It!: Despite having two different sets of tutorials AND a glossary full of gameplay terminology, in the earlier versions of the game, nowhere in-game did it tell you what an Assist is (the best guess that the community had was that it involves using buffs on your allies and/or having two players attack and KO the same opponent), which was very frustrating when one of the possible Daily Missions is to perform a certain number of them. The glossary was later updated to include a definition for it.
  • Halloween Episode: When Stripe was released, the game started their first Halloween event, running from October 15 to November 15, where players could earn candy to buy exclusive items, such as a Calico Cake variant for Jake, and a Mummy variant for Reindog. A couple of new premium skins were also released during this event, such as Witch Velma, Frankenstein Iron Giant, and Black Lantern variants for both Superman and Wonder Woman.
  • Hero-Worshipper: The trailer ends with the Iron Giant seeing Superman and whispering his name in awe.
  • Homemade Sweater from Hell: Invoked. During the game's holiday FestiVersus event, a whole bunch of charactersnote  each received a new variant titled "Ugly Sweater", having the characters wearing Christmas themed wool sweaters and other winter accessories.
  • Home Stage:
    • Fin and Jake have the Tree Fort.
    • Batman has the Batcave.
    • Shaggy and Velma have Scooby's Haunted Mansion.
    • Steven and Garnet has Sky Arena.
    • Rick and Morty have Cromulons.
    • Lebron James has the Space Jam Court.
    • Arya Stark has the Throne Room.
  • Large-Ham Announcer: Besides the game's default announcer shouting every word, some of the characters he can be replaced with have their own unique boisterous calls, like Bugs Bunny, Steven Universe, Harley Quinn and (most incongruously) Taz.
  • Late-Arrival Spoiler: The website blurbs talks about events that were big plot reveals or events in their respective works:
    • Garnet's mentions her being a fusion between Ruby and Sapphire, which was a major reveal at the end of Season 1.
    • Finn's mentions his last name (Mertens) and alludes to him not being the only human in Ooo, which had an entire miniseries dedicated to Finn discovering this and where he came from late in the show.
    • Jake's casually talks about how he's the son of a shapeshifting alien, which was a plot twist from later in the show.
    • Arya’s flat out states that her father is dead and her family deposed; both of those events happen around the end of season 1 and 3 in Game of Thrones. Then it goes on to mention her adventures to Essos in order to train under the Faceless Men and become an assassin, which did not happen until season 5.
  • Lighter and Softer: Compared to the other modern fighting games published by Warner Bros. Games, this one is considerably breezier, as the general tone is comedic, the violence cartoonish, and the DC Comics superheroes are once again portrayed in a much less serious manner like in some other works where they've appeared.
  • Lost Food Grievance: In the cinematic trailer, Shaggy is provoked into unleashing his power when Arya knocks his pie-sandwich to the ground.
    Shaggy: What'd I do to you?! HRRRRRRRRRRGGH!!!
  • Massive Multiplayer Crossover: MultiVersus pulls together several of Warner Bros.' most iconic properties, with the trailer alone showing characters from DC Comics, Looney Tunes, Hanna-Barbera, Cartoon Network, and HBO, among others.
  • Mythology Gag: Has its own page here.
  • Not Quite Starring: LeBron James is not voiced by himself, but by John Eric Bentley.
  • Old, Dark House: Scooby's Haunted Mansion. Everything about this stage is meant to invoke the numerous old creepy houses Mystery Inc. explored in the original show. The stage even has Booby Traps, with parts of the floor dropping down or rising back up with the flip of a switch. The stage got a roofless variant in update 1.05.
  • Online Alias: Humorously, the player names in the reveal trailer are little puns on or references to the character the user is playing as, as if they were the ones playing the game. Bots also have punny playernames based on them being bots.
    • Bugs: WhatsUpDoc
    • Batman: NotBruceWayne
    • Harley: HarleysAngels
    • Jake: JakeNBake
    • Arya: GirlHasNoName
    • Garnet: PreciousGem
    • Finn: FinnishLine
    • Tom and Jerry: BestFrenemies
    • Wonder Woman: CantSeeMyJet
    • Reindog: MakeItReindog
  • Original Generation: Reindog is a completely original character made for this game, and at best, he seems to be a distant Canon Foreigner to The Never Ending Story.
  • Portmantitle: The game's title aptly refers to its multiverse concept combined with its multiplayer versus fighting game genre.
  • Palette Swap: By default, characters have either their clothes or entire bodies colored to whichever team they're on. By default, the player is yellow, your teammate is blue, and opponents are red. The colors can be changed freely in the options, or palette coloring can be disabled entirely.
  • Phrase Catcher: When Wonder Woman is in a match, some of the other characters occasionally use some variant of "wonder" when referring to her... which Wonder Woman herself also does.
  • Power Creep, Power Seep: As expected from a fighting game crossover. Relatively Badass Normal characters like Batman and Arya or completely normal humans like Velma (who doesn't get Shaggy's memetic power-up) get to throw hands with blatantly superpowered characters like Garnet and Superman, and even being put up against characters like Bugs and Tom and Jerry, who actively weaponize Toon Physics to bend the rules.
  • Revisiting the Roots: Some of the character portrayals in this game are evocative of how they were in older works:
  • Rewards Pass: There's a Battle Pass with separate paid and free tiers containing 50 rewards each, like emotes, profile pictures, currency and character variants, that are earned by filling up an Experience meter from completing daily quests and seasonal milestones.
  • Ring Out: Multiversus being a Platform Fighter, it works around the same gimmick as other games in the genre, where you rack up your opponents' damage and send them flying off the stage. However, this game differs from others by having it so players can unlock and equip different Ring Out animations, with most of the options being references from the series and franchises involved.
  • Ruder and Cruder: The game actually allows you to invoke this yourself with the "Mature Language" option; enabling this will allow certain characters to use profanities. Harley Quinn, for example, will use words like "bitchin'" and "badass". Of course, it's still a family-friendly game, so a content advisory is included for kids.
  • Running Gag: After getting a ring-out, some characters might dazedly ask if "anyone got the number of that truck" or something along those lines.
    Velma: Jinkes, did anyone catch the information placard on that subway train?
    Bugs Bunny: [after being run out by Taz] Yeouch! Did anyone get the number on that tornado?
    Uncle Shagworthy: Like, did anyone get the number on that trolley?
  • Shoot Him, He Has a Wallet!: During the cinematic trailer, Bugs says his catchphrase and reaches for his back to pull his carrot out (as always). Batman mistakes this for a weapon and throws a Batarang at him (who's saved by Arya).
  • Shout-Out:
    • As the reveal trailer cycles through Shaggy's costumes, one of his animations mirrors Bruce Lee's bouncing footwork.
    • One of Superman's intro quotes is "We're sure not in Kansas anymore..."
    • When paired with Wonder Woman, one of Bugs' victory quotes he can say is "The Amazon Lady always delivers!"
    • Shaggy's Ultra Warrior skin bears more than a passing resemblance to Hot Ryu, as both sport headbands, padded gloves, full beards, and have bare feet, not to mention the former being a Shotoclone. One of Shaggy's taunts (which has him rip off his karate gi) can complete the look.
    • Reindog's Tea Time variant is a clear reference to the Mad Hatter from the classic book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. It could also be a Mythology Gag to Jervis Tetch, one of Batman's rogues who uses the same moniker.
    • One of Taz's selection quotes is "Snacks? SNACKS?? SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACKS!!"
    • Harley says "Send in the clowns, hot stuff" for one of her selection quotes.
    • When pulling a victory over Black Lantern Superman, Harley might say "More like Yawn of the Dead."
  • Sidelined Protagonist Crossover:
    • The game currently has both Shaggy and Velma as playable characters representing the Scooby-Doo franchise, but as of current writings, the titular Great Dane is nowhere to be seen.
    • In a case of a sidelined antagonist crossover, the game currently lacks Batman's most well-known archenemy, the Joker; his role is filled by Harley Quinn, who's normally an evil sidekick-turned-vigilante.
    • Black Adam has been announced without his arch-nemesis Billy Batson/Captain Marvel/Shazam.
    • Subverted with the Gremlins characters. Stripe was originally announced without Gizmo. However, not only was Gizmo eventually confirmed to be playable, but he was officially added to the game before Stripe.
  • Skill Scores and Perks: Characters can equip up to three perks that grant minor bonuses (unlocked by leveling up, or bought with in-game currency through the Perk Training menu) and one Signature perk that significantly changes their attacks.
  • Slapstick: This game isn't picky in regards to who gets seriously affected by the often goofy status affliction attacks, as male and female fighters, both super and non-super, can be frozen, turned into roast chickens, become smitten against their will, and so forth.
  • Snowball Fight: During the game's holiday themed FestiVersus event, the game's silly queue had a new mode where players throw snowballs at each other, trying to freeze each other while dodging giant ice chunks that would fall from the sky.
  • Songs in the Key of Panic: When either team is one ring-out away from victory, the current stage's song will switch into a second phase that's much more frenetic, especially for more dramatic songs that already have Orchestral Bombing to start with.
  • Toon Physics:
    • Discussed: Velma has a voiceline where she acknowledges that the laws of physics in MultiVersus operate differently, which allows the otherwise klutzy and nonathletic Velma to jump, punch and run in the same level as powerhouses like Superman and Wonder Woman.
    • Actively weaponized by Zany Cartoon characters like Bugs, Taz, Marvin, and Tom and Jerry.
  • Traitor Shot: In one of their animations, Tom and Jerry shake hands with one another, with a bat behind the former's back and a bomb behind the latter. While this makes it clear they're going to backstab each other, Jerry also winks at the audience◊.
  • Trapped in Another World: The "You're With Me" trailer has Batman mysteriously teleported to the world of MultiVersus by what the Batcomputer calls a "strange energy signature". Other characters are also shown appearing in a similar way, although aside from Shaggy and Arya, none of them seem bothered by this.
  • Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny: With this game being a Massive Multiplayer Crossover between any characters that fall under the Warner Bros. Discovery blanketnote , this trope is obviously in effect, but sometimes the characters themselves invoke this themselves, wondering aloud which of their friends back home would win in a fight. And given how the devs said there's no roster limit, it's not impossible that we could one day see these matchups in-game.
    • If Arya pulls a win over Shaggy, she might suggest that they pit each of their dogs (Scooby and Nymeria) against each other.
    • Batman whenever teaming with Arya, in all his seriousness, might ask her who would win in a fight, Syrio or Ra's Al-Ghul.
    • Batman also states that Jake the Dog would give "Plas" a run for his money.
  • Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Tom and Jerry rarely ever notice or react to the various beings summoned from other worlds and universes, as they're far too busy fighting with each other and often end up defeating their opponents via collateral damage.
  • Valentine's Day Episode: February 14th saw the start of the ValentiNeon, where players could earn Candy Hearts to unlock prizes. Additionally, this event brought in a handful of pink and purple Valentines-themes variants for a lot of charactersnote . Silly Mode also got a new event where players would collect or steal hearts to unleash a powerful attack.
  • Voice for the Voiceless: A downplayed variant; Reindog and Tom and Jerry don't have any victory quotesnote , so any characters paired with them will say theirs by default.
  • Wall Jump: A universal mechanism in the game is the ability to cling onto walls and do a short hop from them, allowing any character to scale up terrain by jumping from them.

 
Feedback

Video Example(s):

What'd I do to you?

Arya Stark, did you just destroy Shaggy's pie sandwich? Zoinks! You just made him unleash 1% of his full power!

Example of:
Lost Food Grievance

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What'd I do to you?

Arya Stark, did you just destroy Shaggy's pie sandwich? Zoinks! You just made him unleash 1% of his full power!

How well does it match the trope?

4.98 (44 votes)

Example of:

Main / LostFoodGrievance

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