MultiVersus peaks at over 114k concurrent players on Steam at full launch, but receives mixed reviews from players
Almost two years after the release of the early access beta version, MultiVersus has now officially launched globally. Despite initially high player interest, many users criticized the changes to the fighting game’s core mechanics.
Warner Bros. originally launched the open beta of MultiVersus in July 2022, which ran until last June. The game went offline after that, and version 1.0 became available on May 28.
According to SteamDB, MultiVersus peaked at 114,515 concurrent players yesterday, but couldn’t reach its all-time high of 153.4k CCU. Although the numbers are still impressive, keep in mind that it is a free-to-play game.
MultiVersus is also available on PlayStation, Xbox, and the Epic Games Store, but there are no public tools to check out metrics on those platforms.
With the 114.5k peak, MultiVersus ranks 9th in peak CCU among all 2024 games on Steam, including new releases and Early Access graduates. It is the only free-to-play title in the top 10, with the exception of Content Warning, which was free-to-claim for the first 24 hours before going premium.
- Palworld — 2.1 million CCU
- Helldivers 2 — 458.7k CCU
- Last Epoch — 264.7k CCU (1.0 launch)
- Dragon’s Dogma 2 — 228.5 CCU
- Content Warning — 204.4k CCU
- Manor Lords — 173.1k CCU
- Enshrouded — 160.4k CCU
- V Rising — 132.7k CCU (1.0 launch)
- MultiVersus — 114.5k CCU
- Granblue Fantasy: Relink — 114k CCU
MultiVersus currently has an 85% score on Steam based on almost 98k reviews. However, only 69% of the recent reviews are positive, indicating a “Mixed” rating.
It appears that many players didn’t like certain elements of the game’s 1.0 version compared to the open beta. Some users noted that the combat got much slower and more clunky, also criticizing zoomed-in camera, technical issues, the absence of proper offline features, and monetization. “Monetized characters requires ridiculous play times to unlock,” one player said, with another user noting that “Joker costs over 1,000 gleamium forcing you to buy the 20 dollars of gleamium instead of just the 10 for other characters if you even wanted to purchase him.”
Developed by Player First Games and supported by Warner Bros. Games San Diego, MultiVersus is expected to expand the company’s portfolio of fighting games. But unlike Mortal Kombat, which is a premium-first title, the new game fully embraces the live service model. So the main question is whether MultiVersus can and entertain and retain players the long term, while remaining financially sustainable for the company.
