Category: Entertainment & Lifestyle

Season 5 is slated to be the final season of MultiVersus. After May 30, 2025, it will no longer be possible to play MultiVersus online and there will be no more new content going forward. Though the community will still be able to “enjoy the game offline for the foreseeable future,” this essentially marks the end of MultiVersus.

As one can imagine, this news is especially disappointing for fans of MultiVersus and the platform brawler genre. This dismal announcement came about very suddenly as many fans believe that MultiVersus just wasn’t able to live up to its full potential.

To rewind a bit, MultiVersus achieved a lot during its beta period as it smashed the record for most played fighting game on the PC. It even won the “Fighting Game of the Year” award at the 26th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards in the year 2023.

Considering that Warner Bros. was backing this game, many believed that this could even be a true competitor for Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. series. As a result, it was often referred to as the “Smash Killer.”

However, the developers eventually made the decision to shut the MultiVersus beta down for a while for the purpose of getting it fixed for a proper launch. Ultimately though, the game’s relaunch had a negative impact on the game’s community reception and numbers.

With this, many began to point fingers at the parties that they felt were to blame for this situation. Numerous people held the game’s director, Tony Huynh, most responsible for the impending shutdown of MultiVersus.

Initially, Huynh was noticeably silent on his Twitter feed about the grim news, but has recently released a statement addressing the controversies.

Hey all, I wanted to say a few words as I reflect on the recently announced news about MultiVersus. While I’m sad about the outcome, I will forever be grateful for the opportunity given to us by Warner Bros. Games and to each and every developer on the Player First Games and WB…

— Tony Huynh (@Tony_Huynh) February 2, 2025

Hey, all. I wanted to say a few words as I reflect on the recently announced news about MultiVersus. While I’m sad about the outcome, I will forever be grateful for the opportunity given to us by Warner Bros. Games and to each and every developer on the Player First Games and WB Games teams. Also to every IP holder thank you for entrusting us with your babies, we hope we made the characters true to themselves and felt authentic to your fans.

I couldn’t be prouder of the work the PFG team did. Their endless creativity and passion never ceased to inspire and amaze me. And of course I wanted to thank every player who has ever played or supported MultiVersus. Delighting and serving players is Player First Games objective.

I apologize for not addressing things sooner, there’s been a lot going on and I’ve been focused on the game and the team, but now more-so the team.

Thank you for sending us all the great fan art, character ideas, and personal stories. They were the highlight of every day and always excited the team.

I’m sorry if we couldn’t get to your favorite character. I do think Aquaman and Lola are really cool and I hope you all check them out. Character selection comes down to bunch of things including development time, listening to what the community wants, working with IP holders and approvals, if there is a cross-marketing opportunity available to support, and of course if the team is inspired to make the character. So a lot goes into to it.

For instance, Banana Guard came about because the team was enthusiastic about making it and, on their own, produced it over the weekend as a fun, quick-to-make character. When inspiration and enthusiasm spark we want to reward that and we got Banana Guard because of that. It wasn’t at the expense of another character. It was because the team was excited about making the character.

I don’t have the power some you think I do. Player First Games is a highly collaborative team and ideas are encouraged and can come from anyone and we promote delivering value to players.

I also hope that the community notices that we try to listen and act. Like any developer we’re limited by time and resources.

I know that this is painful for everyone, and I know every member of PFG feels it too, but I have to call this out, you’re entitled to what you say and think, but when there are threats to harm it’s crossing the line. I hope that you can take a step back and realize that this is an extremely sad time for the team. I am in deep mourning for the game. Nobody wanted this outcome and it wasn’t from lack of caring or effort.

I sincerely hope that Season 5 is enjoyed with the time we have left and that you will all continue supporting other platform fighter and fighting games as these games have impacted me in many positive ways. I’ve made so many friends and created so many great memories because of these games, and a big reason why we worked so hard at PFG was to share that with you.

I hope that we played a small part and that you can look back on MVS and find some joy in the friends you made and the memories you shared.

Thank you for allowing this dream to become a reality even if for a briefer time than we would have wanted. I don’t know what the future holds for any of all of us, but I just wanted to say thank you. It has been an honor to work alongside the team at PFG to serve our community and players.

The Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising tournament at Kayane Cup is currently ongoing. During the event, a new trailer for the game was dropped.

Though the developers weren’t ready to showcase a new character, it was revealed that new costumes are on the way. Within the aforementioned trailer, alternate costumes were shown off for Zooey and Beelzebub.

It seems that Zooey has opted to trade in her plated armor for swimwear. Of course, her sword, shield, and pet wyvern all appear to be the same with this outfit selected.

Regardless, it will be possible to defeat opponents with style with the new costume. As the costume has a high “fan service” aspect to it, it’s easy to imagine how the attire will become very popular online once it goes live.

Beelzebub on the other hand is getting a gold-plated armor for his alternate outfit. A number of jewels can be seen adorned to his armor.

The trailer ultimately serves as just a bit of a teaser for the costumes. This is likely a sign that there will be even more outfits shown off in the future. For the time being, it’s unknown what these costumes will be priced at or when they’ll be released.

Check it all out below:

Click images for larger versions

Fukuhara-san n’est pas venu du Japon les mains vides !!
Il nous fait l’honneur de nous montrer en exclusivité ce trailer d’annonce Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising

Arigato @hiyopi !! #AWT2024 @IntelFrance @NaconFR @Cygames_FR @materielnet @ASUS_ROG_FR pic.twitter.com/4bfXXBRVZj

— Kayane (@Kayane) February 2, 2025

ONi|Naji has released a new tier list for Street Fighter 6. This analysis of the current meta comes just days before Mai Shiranui is set to drop. We also suspect there will be some notable buffs and nerfs packaged alongside the new character.

For those that don’t know him, Naji is a competitive Juri player that managed to place at 33rd and 49th at Evo 2023 and Evo 2024 respectively. That’s quite impressive considering how both events had over 5,000 players competing at each of them.

According to Naji, the top 5 characters in Street Fighter 6 right now are Rashid, Akuma, Ken, Guile, and Ed. It’s certainly interesting how three of the five top characters were added to the game post-launch as Season 1 DLC.

M. Bison is said to be strong, but not quite top 5. In a follow up Tweet, Naji elaborated on how easy it is to bully M. Bison. Of course, the character’s ability to deal absurd amounts of damage make it so that a lot of people just don’t know how to fight against him right now.

Other characters found in the A tier category include Cammy, Dee Jay, Ryu, Juri, Zangief, A.K.I., and JP. Indeed, we often see a number of these fighters performing well in the tournament scene.

E. Honda, Jamie, and Marisa are said to be the overall worst characters in Street Fighter 6. As such, Naji has labeled them as D tier combatants.

Check it all out below:

Click images for larger versions

Be on the lookout, because they’re planting seeds now

During a podcast, NetherRealm Studios’ Ed Boon fielded all sorts of questions about the development of the Mortal Kombat games, and what his team has in store next.

When asked specifically what’s coming from NetherRealm Studios in the future, Boon said “It’s not like when we finish a game, we go ‘What are we going to do next?’ we decided what we were going to do a long time ago.”

He did note that NetherRealm Studios is sowing seeds currently for their next title.

“The next game hasn’t been announced, I’d love to give you that exclusive, but I’d probably get in big trouble,” said Boon.

“We’re supporting Mortal Kombat 1 with additional characters and what not, and we’re planting seeds for the next game,” he added.

Boon was asked about typical development cycles for the Mortal Kombat games. “Almost every MK game was two years or less [of development time], Mortal Kombat 1 was four years,” he responded.

“There were a lot of factors involved in it, game engines, the COVID-19 pandemic… I don’t think our goal is to take four years for every game at this point,” he said.

When NetherRealm Studios joined Warner Bros., they gave the studio six more months of additional development time to make Mortal Kombat 9’s release in 2011 awesome. It was the best selling Mortal Kombat game at that time.

Boon cited the decreased pressure to release the game and more time to improve various things as reasons why the game sold like it did.

Ed noted that the first Mortal Kombat game, released in 1992 had 4 people working on it for 8 months and less than a million dollar budget.

The second game had about 5 people, the third was roughly 9 and then went to 25 and about 70 people as they made each additional sequel. By the time they joined Warner Bros., they had about 90 staff members working on Mortal Kombat.

Now it’s hundreds of people who work on a Mortal Kombat title.

Ed Boon was then asked how he approaches making a new Mortal Kombat game, and what his mindset is going into it.

“If you were to ask what the common thread or theme is, answer the question of ‘Why should somebody play this version when they’ve played 10 other ones?’,” said Boon.

“Let’s answer that question, let’s add something to the fighting, the story, or to the overall experience that’s never been done in a Mortal Kombat game, and ideally has never been done in another fighting game or video game,” he said.

Boon cited Mortal Kombat 1’s Kameo system as the unique and special thing about the latest entry in the franchise.

When covering some potential pitfalls they’ve run into in the past, Ed said that releasing games in the same franchise too often was an issue.

“So we went a few years where we were releasing them, in my opinion, too frequently,” said Boon. “There was one year where we did three games in three years, Mortal Kombat Deception, Shaolin Monks and Armageddon.

“I felt like there were periods of time where we overexposed MK, but then we gave it a rest and then people said ‘Where’s my next Mortal Kombat game?’”

Closing this out, Boon is one of the people cited by the Guinness World Record for the longest running voice actor, for Scorpion. Boon was asked if he plays the character he voices in the game. “Most of the time,” he said.

You can find the full interview with Ed Boon on The Fourth Curtain’s Spotify page. The podcast is over an hour long and covers tons of subjects, like Ed’s time at Midway and how he got his start in video games.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and its character select screen consisting of 86 characters is evidence of just how far the series has come. The roster and the movesets associated with its fighters might’ve looked a lot differently had Masahiro Sakurai made alternative decisions with past games due to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s “Everyone Is Here” theme.

Development of Super Smash Bros. Melee ended with a roster of 25 characters (26 if you count Zelda and Sheik separately). According to Sakurai himself, if he just had a little bit more development time, he could’ve added one more character.

“If there was time to include one more person, it would have been Wario,” said Sakurai about Super Smash Bros. Melee.

“If there was time to include one more person, it would have been Wario…” — Masahiro Sakurai

After Super Smash Bros. 64, Sakurai held a poll that aimed to gauge fans on which characters they’d want to see in the sequel, Super Smash Bros. Melee. A sequel for the platform brawler had not yet been announced by this point.

Bowser ultimately won the poll with a whopping 169 votes. Peach ended up coming in second place with 66 votes. She only just barely beat Wario who took third with 65 votes.

Due to this, Bowser and Peach were able to join Super Smash Bros. Melee, but Wario wouldn’t make it in until Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Characters like Mewtwo and Marth, who both performed significantly worse than Wario on the poll, were added instead.

Ultimately, Sakurai could’ve elected to cut either Mewtwo or Marth (and Roy) to add Wario instead. However, Sakurai decided that he didn’t want to overrepresent the Mario series within Super Smash Bros. Melee, opting for the Pokémon and Fire Emblem reps instead.

“I would have needed to get rid of both Marth and Roy or Mewtwo in order for Wario to get in.” — Masahiro Sakurai

“I would have needed to get rid of both Marth and Roy or Mewtwo in order for Wario to get in,” said Sakurai on the matter.

Sakurai has also stated that, with just a little bit more development time, Wario was likely to join the Super Smash Bros. Melee roster. That’s a big statement from Sakurai considering that he landed himself in the hospital due to his self-imposed hectic work schedule back then.

“If I could add one or two more characters, then [Wario] could have gotten in,” said Sakurai according to Source Gaming. “Of all the characters I discarded, [he’s] ranked near the top.”

Wario would later make his debut Smash appearance in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. He has since returned for every entry in the Super Smash Bros. series. His moveset and persona are mostly based on his appearance in WarioWare series.

“If I could add one or two more characters, then [Wario] could have gotten in. Of all the characters I discarded, [he’s] ranked near the top.” — Masahiro Sakurai

Considering that Super Smash Bros. Melee was released in 2001 and WarioWare became available in 2003, Wario would’ve functioned as a wildly different character than what we now have.

In other words, Wario’s playstyle probably would’ve mostly been based on his appearance in the Wario Land series rather than WarioWare. This would’ve translated to Wario functioning like this all the way through Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as well.

Within the Super Smash Bros. series, Wario has been granted a number of bizarre attacks that has him riding his motorcycle, biting, and even flatulating. The Wario Land series take on the character might’ve instead focused on the brute force aspect.

While there are many fans that really do enjoy how Wario plays in Super Smash Bros. as he is now, there are others that would’ve preferred Wario to behave more like a bruiser or grappler. Had Wario been added before Super Smash Bros. Brawl, we’d probably have that version of the character instead.

The Nintendo Switch 2 was recently revealed. As of right now, we only know that the ninth entry to the Mario Kart franchise will be present within the hybrid console’s library, but there’s a high likelihood that we’ll see a new Super Smash Bros. iteration on the device at some point.

Incidentally, we know that Masahiro Sakurai has been working on a secret game project since April 2022. Based on the timing of everything, it seems like this mysterious project is intended for the Switch 2.

Throughout the Super Smash Bros. series, there have been a few times in which characters received reworks to their movesets. Could this sort of thing happen for Wario? There are plenty of fans that would prefer Wario to reference more of the Wario Land and Wario World games.

Considering that the character is mostly just associated with the WarioWare franchise these days, it doesn’t seem particularly likely. Still, it’s hard to accurately predict what Sakurai might have in store for the next Super Smash Bros., whenever that comes about.

First-to-10 in Dino Rex, let’s go

There are a lot of really bad fighting games out there that you’ve probably heard a lot about by now, but digging into the ones from back in the early days of the genre — when things were a lot more experimental — you’ll often come across something that you never heard of before that you simply can’t believe you haven’t.

Enter Dino Rex, a competitive fighter from 1992 that is, well… a really bad game. In fact, it’s one of the worst fighters ever made, and Matt McMuscles recently released a video that details exactly why it is and ranks it among the various other “worst fighting games” he’s rated previously.

Now, we probably all remember another, more popular prehistoric fighter called Primal Rage that saw giant dinosaurs and apes doing battle as they towered over tiny humans that ran around the stage in fear. Primal Rage was developed by Atari and released in arcades in 1994, and you likely had a copy of the game on either Sega Genesis or Super Nintendo back in the day (or knew someone who did).

But before Primal Rage there was Dino Rex, a 1v1 fighter developed by Taito that featured, well, giant dinosaurs doing battle as they towered over their tiny human overlords. And it was a rough game to say the least.

As Matt McMuscles explains, Taito cemented their legacy in video game history by being the developers of the classic Space Invaders title. The company’s specialty essentially became shoot ’em up games, and in 1991 a team at Taito was tasked with developing another game that began as more of the same, but ultimately evolved into being a competitive fighter due to Street Fighter 2’s massive success.

Right out of the gate, Dino Rex had two major things going against it. The team that developed it didn’t have any experience designing competitive fighting games, and the fact that it started out as a shoot ’em up game became apparent shortly after you began playing it.

It featured giant, muted colored dinosaurs that would tail swipe and claw at each other until a victor was crowned. As McMuscles describes it, Dino Rex barely even feels like a fighting game at all in terms of how it controls and its game mechanics.

There are two attack buttons, one for punches and one for kicks, and it’s one of those games where pressing up doesn’t make you jump. Instead, you’ll have to press down then up very quickly, and even then, it will only see you perform a neutral jump.

From terrible controls to bad sound design, Dino Rex is just a strange dino-based fighter that suffers from a lot of clunkiness and jank. Check out the full breakdown from Matt McMuscles below, as well as where he ranks it among the worst of the worst.

Big Bang 6 is going to be happening this weekend and it’ll going on in Marfil, Guanajuato, Mexico.

Notable participants include LG|DarkAngel, Koopatj, CDM|Lokof, CDM|Rino, AR|Wero Asamiya, Tamago, Kusanagi, Lugabo, LAGr|Jazdero, CDM|KoferoHonesto, Pako, ShadowX, AR|Robert, Tako, DivineExorcist4, Urezs, JuanKOF and more.

Big Bang 6 is an event on the SNK World Championship tour which means there’s a qualification spot up for grabs for King of Fighters 15.

The main tournaments are King of Fighters 15 which sits at over 70 participants, Street Fighter 6 with more than 60 registrants, The King of Fighters ’98 which has around 35 players, Tekken 8 with more than 20 signups as well as Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2 sitting at exactly 20 people signed up.

There will also be side events for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, King of Fighters 13, Garou: Mark of the Wolves, Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising and Vampire Savior (Darkstalkers).

English streaming will be done at Tampa Never Sleeps and more streaming will be done at KOF Romance, TeamCDW and Anya Tekken.

It’s a big flex on the opponent

For the past couple of weeks, whenever you’ve heard anything about Mortal Kombat 1 you’ve likely heard the word “Floyd.” The biggest talk of the town since the Conan the Barbarian update has been the mysterious pink ninja and the search to find, face, and defeat him.

This hidden fight is one of the best secrets we’ve ever seen in modern fighting games, but even though Floyd has gotten most of the spotlight since the latest DLC character was added to the game, it seems Conan (said DLC character) also has some secrets of his own. Not long after he was released, it was discovered that there’s a hidden Easter egg involving one of Conan’s Brutalities, and it’s pretty darn funny, honestly.

Last week, Mortal Kombat legend SonicFox shared a clip on Twitter showing the Easter egg in action. When you finish a game with Conan’s uppercut Brutality, you have the option to flex on your opponent even more… literally.

During the victory screen, Conan will pose and stand facing toward the camera. If you hold down on the controller and hold both L2 + R2, the warrior will quite literally flex his pecs while your opponent lies there headless.

Continuing to hold down those inputs will see him continually alternate between flexing each muscle, and if for whatever reason you don’t believe this was an intentional Easter egg put in by the developers, one of NetherRealm Studios’ animators actually addressed it and confirmed it.

Advanced Animator on Mortal Kombat 1, John A. Martinez, responded to the tweet with Sonic’s clip and had this to say.

“Big shout out to our Tech Art team for giving us the ability to even make an Easter egg like this possible,” Martinez wrote. “Glad you decided to get this in @videogamebrian.”

The tagged Twitter account there belongs to Mortal Kombat designer Brian Lebaron, which adds further credibility to the whole thing.

Big shout out to our Tech Art team for giving us the ability to even make an Easter egg like this possible. Glad you decided to get this in @videogamebrian https://t.co/YYFrEYdmKg

— John A Martinez (@StorTheAnimator) January 21, 2025

While Conan and Floyd have been bringing the hidden gems to Mortal Kombat 1, another small Easter egg that we hadn’t seen prior was recently recorded and shared. Apparently, it’s possible to trigger the classic “Toasty!” notification in Mortal Kombat 1 when a certain modifier is active in one of the Towers of Time.

Kayane Cup is back this year and will be happening in Paris, France.

Notable participants include SYG|Jason Thomas, Fitizen, FREE|Usagi, Barutorec, Oplon|Skyll, mCon|Space, Socky, FREE|Andross11, TF|Precho, Setchi, NSxC|PataChu, Dudeakoff, Comité|Shirou, Svampen, Releasebogus, PdM|Sonic-san, Arefu, Free|Pepe Uehara, Daseinologist, NSxC|Neøs, Revill, NSxC|Crillou, VS|Orochi and more.

This is an Arc World Tour event for the ongoing circuit and will be a Platinum event for Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising and a Gold event for Guilty Gear Strive.

It also so happens that this is the final Arc World Tour stop for the tour which means that this will finalize what the rankings look like moving into the main event and its Last Chance Qualifier.

Guilty Gear Strive is the lesser event as far as points potential goes but despite that it’s leading in entrants with almost 170 signups. As for Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising, it’s definitely no slouch either with over 140 participants.

Streaming is being done at Kayane TV and MrQuaRate.