Warner Bros. is throwing its hat into the fighting game arena with MultiVersus. Originally MultiVersus was nothing more than a rumor, and one that seemed farfetched for a Warner Bros. project, but it turns out its third crossover project this year is all too real.
There are a lot of things that, if delivered on, will separate MultiVersus from many other games within its own genre. As opposed to most other platform fighters except Brawlhalla, MultiVersus will be free to play, with a growing roster drawn from Warner Bros.' various intellectual properties. This includes Shaggy from Scooby-Doo and a series of costumes for each character.
The addition of multiple costumes for each fighter does not make MultiVersus and its roster completely unique, but it is definitely a good selling point since most platform fighters have almost exclusively palette swaps. What's more, the different costumes seem to be drawn from different sources. For heroes like Superman and Wonder Woman, these seem to be alternate versions of them from other stories, but for Shaggy they are more varied. Shaggy's revealed costumes are certainly diverse, including a robe and suit, a Bruce Lee style fighting getup, and a ghi top with gloves.
The robe and suit costume is not actually Shaggy, although the resemblance is uncanny. That's Shaggy's rich Uncle Shagworthy, an irregular character from The Scooby-Doo Show who was the subject of an early caper. His other two costumes are based around famous fighting characters in film from the 70s and 80s, specifically Bruce Lee and, seemingly, Chuck Norris. The bare chested costume shares a color scheme with Lee's iconic black and yellow costume, while Lee also appeared bare chested in many of his movie posters. The reason for these fighting related costumes likely ties to Shaggy's Super Saiyan like powers in MultiVersus.
These Ultra Instinct powers of Shaggy's were first shown off officially in a short Warner Bros. animation, and according to the lore of MultiVersus they're going to stick around throughout the game's story. Since the game takes place over multiple universes, perhaps these other costumes represent Shaggy from other worlds or even from the future. The Chuck Norris looking costume could also just as feasibly be an older version of Shaggy.
Previously, Shaggy was modded into Jump Force because of his Ultra Instinct meme. If players want to dress him up in MultiVersus though, there's a good chance it will cost real money, since the game has to be monetized somehow.
MultiVersus is set to release in 2022 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.