Warner Bros. Games Officially Acquires the Developer of MultiVersus [IGN]

Warner Bros. Games has officially acquired Player First Games, adding the developer behind MultiVersus to its profile.

In an official release sent to IGN, Warner Bros. confirmed that co-founder Tony Huynh and Chris White will retain leadership of the studio, which has led development of the popular Smash Bros-like brawler. Multiversus officially launched in May following early access and open beta releases throughout 2022 and 2023.

“Our team is excited to join the Warner Bros. Games family, and we feel that this will be great for MultiVersus overall,” Huynh said in a release. “We are working to make the MultiVersus game experience the best it can be and having our development team integrated with the publisher is optimum for the players.”

The announcement came ahead of the release of MultiVersus Season 2, which is set to go live tomorrow. In addition to ranked mode, the new season will add Samurai Jack and Beetlejuice. They join a host of other Warner Bros. characters, including Agent Smith, Joker, and more.

Reviews of MultiVersus have been mostly positive since its release, with our own review stating, “MultiVersus is a raucous and fun competitive platform fighter that rewards players for learning the strengths and weaknesses of its eclectic cast of characters and working as part of a team. Its focus on online 2v2 means it lacks the pick-up-and-play nature of a game like Smash Bros., but it also does a nice job of setting it apart from other games in the genre. MultiVersus may need time to grow its currently limited selection of stages and characters to meet its bright potential, but its foundations are already rock solid.”

Warner Bros. Games president David Haddad said in a statement, “We have worked with Player First Games over several years to create and launch MultiVersus, and we are very pleased to welcome this talented team to Warner Bros. Games. The bright and creative team at Player First Games adds to our extensive development capabilities.”

Player First Games joins a studio line-up that also includes NetherRealm Studios, TT Games, Monolith Productions, and Avalanche Software. Warner Bros. Games was recently hit by layoffs amid the closure of its Mortal Kombat: Onslaught mobile game, with Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League also struggling since release. Despite that, Warner Bros. Games has said it will continue to double down on live service games, which includes MultiVersus.

Kat Bailey is IGN’s News Director as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot