MultiVersus Season 1 patch notes confirm Morty release date, Batman and Arya as free playable characters

Warner Bros and Player First Games have released the Season 1 full-patch notes for their colourful character brawler MultiVersus, confirming Season 1's free character rotation and a new release date for delayed character Morty Smith, alongside a whole host of balance tweaks and bug-fixes.

Launching today, Season 1's new free character rotation will let non-paying players do battle as Batman, Arya Stark, LeBron James, and "Steven". I know that's specifically Steven Universe, but there is something inherently amusing about seeing the name "Steven" sitting alongside Batman in an announcement of playable heroes.

The patch notes also confirm a new release date for Morty Smith, whose inclusion in the game was delayed alongside the pushing back of Season 1's launch from the original release date of August 9. Now, Morty will be stammering his way into MultiVersus on August 23rd, armed, of course, with a Plumbus.

Alongside these headline changes are a whole host of character balancing tweaks, with seventeen characters getting various buffs, nerfs, and specific fixes.  Of these characters, Arya has received the biggest bonuses, with her hits now launching opponents at a better angle for follow-up attacks, and her ground-down attack getting slightly earlier dodge branching. The patch notes explicitly state that "The goal of these changes was to make Arya's combos be more consistent and successful at lower skill levels."

Meanwhile, LeBron has also received a fairly substantial buff, with several attacks branching earlier on hit for better combo potential, and a more consistent Ground Side Attack. The Iron Giant, by comparison hand, has received the biggest nerf. His Air Up attack can no longer hit the same target multiple times, while his Air Neutral Attack has been altered to push opponents further away from him, giving them a better chance to recover.

These character-specific changes are accompanied by broader alterations to the game's meta. Battle Pass XP match rewards have been substantially increased to 10 for wins and 5 for losses (previously 5 for wins and 3 for losses), while class-based Battle Pass missions have been disabled other than for Tanks. The devs have also added icons to specifically identify characters currently in free rotation, which is a useful quality-of-life feature.

You can read the full list of patch notes here. It's worth noting that the patch is split into two parts, one launching today and another "coming shortly afterwards". The notes state that "most" of the changes listed will be available from today, but don't specify which of the changes are to be left out until the second part of the patch.