‘MultiVersus’ player count plummets by nearly 100%

MultiVersus, a Smash Bros-esque fighter featuring many Warner Bros. characters, has seen its daily player count on Steam drop by nearly 100%.

The free-to-play online game received positive reviews and topped sales charts on its release in July 2022, but it has been hit by player dissatisfaction over a lack of new characters and the monetisation of content.

On its first day, the game posted more than 143,000 players on Steam, and this rose to 153,433 the following day.

A month after its launch, Warner Bros. stated that over 20 million players had already downloaded and played the game, suggesting it had developed a strong player base on which to build.

However, since then, the daily peak player count has been steadily dropping. On Monday 13 February that number dropped below 1,000 for the first time, with SteamDB posting a figure of just 986. This marks a drop in daily peak player count of 99.36% in less than seven months.

There is no equivalent data about the game’s player count on consoles.

This decline has been attributed by Video Games Chronicle, in part, for a negative response to the game’s Season Two content.

MultiVersus’ first season saw the release of five new characters – Rick, Morty, Gizmo, Stripe and Black Adam – over the course of around two months.

The last addition to the game’s roster, and the only one since the second season began on 15 November, was Looney Tunes’ Marvin the Martian.

The third season of the game was due to be released this week, but it has now been delayed to 31 March. In a tweet, developer PlayerFirst Games said that the decision to delay the release was made to help players “reach the end of the current Battle Pass”, an announcement that has been poorly received by existing players.

Fans have also criticised the monetisation system, which charges up to $15 to access premium currency to unlock new character skins.