Player First euthanizes MultiVersus amid ongoing live-service purge

Player First Games announced today that the upcoming season of its live-service fighting game MultiVersus will be its last. Season 5 will run from February 4 through May 30, after which the game will only be available to play offline. Starting today, players will no longer be able to spend money on in-game transactions, and after Season 5 ends, it’ll no longer be available to download. This puts MultiVersus on the list of live-service multiplayer games that are being shut down by or are no longer receiving support from their publishers.

According to Player First, Season 5 will feature the final new additions to the roster: Aquaman and Lola Bunny. All of the in-game content will be unlockable through gameplay, and players can still use any in-game currency they already possess through May 30. The studio assures players the game will be available to play offline against friends in co-op or against A.I. opponents “for the foreseeable future.” This comes less than a year after MultiVersus returned from a lengthy offline development process following its open beta, and only six months after Warner Bros. Games acquired the studio.

MultiVersus is one of many live-service titles that has been abandoned by its creators in the last year, perhaps due to a lack of player interest and incoming revenue. The failure and subsequent cancelation of Concord, as well as Sony’s shuttering of developer Firewalk shortly afterward, is the standout example, but there have been several others.

Ubisoft announced it was wrapping up live-service FPS XDefiant, despite it seeming to be a celebration of its multiple in-house IP. Warner Bros. Games announced the end of content updates for Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. Square Enix gave up on supporting Splatoon-like title Foamstars. Sony also canceled two in-development live-service titles at Bend Studio and Bluepoint, the latter of which was allegedly a God of War game.