Free or $59 | PC, PS4/5, XBS/X | multiversus.com
I’m Adventure Time’s Jake the Dog, standing on the edge of a Rick and Morty-themed arena. I’m about to beat Shaggy from Scooby-Doo into a bloody pulp while my teammate Arya Stark is casually stealing Batman’s face. A few years ago this would have given me severe whiplash, but in a world where tennis star Naomi Osaka is throwing hands at Naruto in Fortnite, nothing surprises me any more.
MultiVersus’ biggest inspiration is still clear. Anyone who has spent a modicum of time with Nintendo’s Smash Bros will quickly get the gist: smack your opponent with a mixture of normal, air, and special attacks in order to increase their damage meter; avoid letting them do the same to you. Victory has nothing to do with getting a health bar from 100 to 0, it’s all done through the damage meter. While the number is low, you’re weighty and difficult to knock off the top and sides of the arena. As it gets higher though, your character turns into a rubber bouncy ball, and becomes susceptible to all kinds of spikes and knockback attacks that can fling you straight into the death zone. Knock your opponent out of the arena enough times and you’ll claim victory.
It’s your standard platform fighter formula manages a few key differences that really set it apart. The first one is how the game handles its roster. Every character belongs to a class: tank, support, mage, bruiser, and assassin. Tanks like Wonder Woman and Iron Giant can take more hits and are harder to ring out but are slower. Assassins like Finn the Human and Arya Stark are nimble fighters, dealing big damage quickly.
