Ever wanted to see Steven Universe beat Batman in a fight? The free-to-play brawler MultiVersus offers a unique gaming experience that will catch your interest. MultiVersus has a variety of well-known characters, unique abilities, and fun maps to offer. Most of the fighters come from popular shows and movies, allowing you to play as your favorite hero - whether that will be Arya Stark or the Iron Giant. You can play the hectic free-for-all, show off your skills in a 1v1, or collaborate with a teammate in the 2v2 co-op.

Related: MultiVersus: Beginner Tips

When you start playing MultiVersus, you'll likely want to try out every character, find your favorite, and upgrade them. However, MultiVersus' characters aren't all immediately available to play. Here's a guide on how to gain access to them as quickly as possible.

Updated July 28, 2022 by James Kennedy: Since the release of this guide, MultiVersus' beta has officially become open to the public. Not only that, but Lebron James was added to the roster! A lot can change in a week, eh? Thus, we felt that it was necessary to update this guide and bring it in line with the current version of the game. So, worry not, fellow gamers, all the information contained within is accurate and up-to-date!

Which Characters Do You Start With?

So, there is only one character who you will be able to receive for free and hold onto: Shaggy. Once you complete the basic training mode, you will be rewarded with Shaggy. This is pretty cool, as Shaggy is a very strong character. He is also pretty user-friendly and easy to understand, so he makes for a great first character!

Beyond the dopiest member of the Mystery Incorporated team, you will also have access to a rotating cast of characters. Which four characters are available will rotate every two weeks.

If you are confused, as you thought Wonder Woman was the free character, that is because she used to be. She was swapped out for Shaggy in patch 1.03.

Unlocking Characters With Gold

First and foremost, you can use gold to unlock characters. This is going to be the free-to-play player's go-to method for unlocking characters. Apart from getting new heroes to play, gold can be spent on improving your characters' abilities. Which is sorta the rub here. If you are saving all your gold for characters, you will have less available to spend on abilities. Every character has a different gold cost associated with them.

You earn gold by:

• Playing the game
• Logging in and winning a match to gain your daily victory bonus (which is worth 100 gold a day!)
• Pairing up with another player (this gets you 30 percent extra gold per match played with a partner)
• Leveling up your current characters (you get 100 gold once you hit level 5)
• Ranking up your Battle Pass (the free Battle Pass has 1500 gold available for the taking

Unlocking Characters With Gleamium

Gleamium is a MultiVersus currency that you can purchase with real money. Gleamium is used to buy almost all the fun stuff in the game. This ranges from skins (called "variants" in MultiVersus) as well as Battle Passes. While you can use Gleamium to purchase characters, it is extraordinarily expensive. Each character in the game costs 700 Gleamium. This means that if you were to buy the largest Gleamium pack (which provides the "best value"), each character would cost roughly six dollars (USD). The smaller the pack of Gleamium you buy, the more expensive the characters become. The table below shows how expensive each Gleamium pack is.

Honestly, using Gleamium to purchase characters is easily the worst bang for your buck in the game. You acquire gold at a decent clip, so it shouldn't be too hard to grab the characters you want by just playing the game. If you want to just buy the characters and unlock the whole cast from the beginning, the Founder's Packs are a substantially better deal.

Unlocking Characters With Character Tokens

To obtain Character Tokens, you need to purchase a Founder's Pack. These packs are purchased with real money. The Founder's Packs are a great way of getting the entire cast of characters without having to worry about accumulating gold. The standard pass costs $39.99 USD and gives you 15 Character Tokens, the Deluxe Pack costs $59.99 USD and gives you 20 Tokens, and the Premium Pack comes in at a whopping $99.99 USD and gives you 30 Tokens.

Given that Shaggy is a free character, this means that even the Standard Founder's Pack would get you nearly the entire roster (though you would still have to buy a few characters with gold). This really is just an option for people who want access to all the roster from the onset. These packs do come with a slew of extra stuff as well. This includes Battle Passes, Gleamium, and some bonus goodies. Check out our more in-depth breakdown here for more information.

NEXT: MultiVersus: Everything You Need To Know About The Mini Battle Pass