Live Service Games Are Exhausting

During the time that MultiVersus is going to be completely offline, players will not be able to get a refund for anything they’ve purchased in the game. Their progress and cosmetics will transfer over when the game is fully released in 2024, but for now, these things are just left up in the air. You can still play the game offline (so it can still be a part of in-person tournaments) and have access to your characters, cosmetics, and the training room.

MultiVersus going offline to improve the quality of the game, netcode, and content cadence is great for casual players who may want to try the game in the future, but it’s not so great for the players who were already dedicated to the game. As someone who plays a lot of free-to-play, live-service games, I am pretty tired of seeing games go free-to-play with the general live-service battlepass system.

Of course, there are some games that have found success with this format, like Warzone, Apex Legends, and Fortnite, and I don’t think that should change. Those formulas work really well for games that have repetitive formats like battle royales. There needs to be regular content drops with new limited time modes (or permanent modes), cosmetic updates, and other seasonal events to keep the game feeling fresh so it’s not so repetitive.

Yes, I did not include Overwatch 2 as I don’t feel it fits that live-service model very well right now. I’m glad it’s free-to-play but locking characters behind a battlepass is pretty frustrating. I understand there are other ways to unlock that character, like with specific challenges, but it’s not as fast as just unlocking them through the battlepass purchase.

For example, Overwatch’s latest character, Ramattra, was released extremely strong and was available to play in competitive mode. It honestly felt like if you did not have a tank on your team who had unlocked Ramattra, you were bound to lose, or at least have a high likelihood of losing. So you feel pressured to unlock that character the fastest way possible, which is through buying the battlepass. But this makes an uneven battleground for players who may not have the time to grind to unlock new characters or have the money to purchase a battlepass.

Live-service games are fine if the formula can be hit just right with consistent content drops, changes in balancing, and a good offering of cosmetics. But a lot of games now struggle with that cadence, which often leads to the sunsetting of those games. I liked Knock-Out City and I know a lot of people loved Rumbleverse, but they’re part of the unsuccessful crowd that could not figure out a good rhythm to updating the game.

I’ve also personally gotten really tired of trying to keep up with all of the live-service games I have attachments to, especially if I have multiple battlepasses to finish. Keeping up with Apex’s 100-tier battlepass and Warzone’s own 100-tier battlepass is difficult enough and I’m starting to feel that live-service fatigue to the point where I don’t want to get involved in yet another free-to-play live service game. It would likely be the same content for a month or two and I’ll fall off and then come back once a major update is through.

I’m lucky enough to have other games to play and cover for work so I’m never tied down to one thing. It’s just sad to realize that I’m growing more detached from these games that I genuinely like just due to their content format. I will say though that it’s nice to know that the base game stays unchanged and is great to come back to when I’m wanting to revisit it (like battle royale formats).

MultiVersus Characters