Software:Family Guy: Back to the Multiverse

Short description: 2012 video game

Family Guy: Back to the Multiverse
North American box cover
Developer(s)	Heavy Iron Studios
Publisher(s)	Activision
Director(s)	Christopher Cross Dellekamp Siefert Marc Vulcano
Producer(s)	Diana Wu
Designer(s)	Brian McInerny Justin Norr Michael Light Timmy Jordan
Programmer(s)	Amrit Dharwadkar
Artist(s)	Dorothy Chen Sean Ho Chris McLeod
Writer(s)	Anthony Blasucci Mike Desilets
Composer(s)	Walter Murphy
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows PlayStation 3 Xbox 360
Release	NA: November 20, 2012 AU: November 21, 2012 EU: November 23, 2012
Genre(s)	Action-adventure Third-person shooter
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

Family Guy: Back to the Multiverse is an action-adventure third-person shooter video game developed by Heavy Iron Studios and published by Activision. The game is based on the American animated television series Family Guy, primarily the episode "Road to the Multiverse", as well as the episode "The Big Bang Theory". The game was released in North America on November 20, 2012, in Australia on November 21, 2012, and in Europe on November 23, 2012, for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. Versions for Nintendo 3DS and Wii were planned but canceled. It was the first Family Guy console game since Family Guy Video Game! in 2006.

Upon release, Family Guy: Back to the Multiverse received negative reviews. While praise fell towards its humor, characters, and voice acting, the game was criticized for its gameplay, graphics, and story. When the game was available for pre-order, people who pre-ordered the game received a special level, based on Software:Aliens: Colonial Marines, another video game based on the Aliens trademark also owned by 20th Century Fox, which was released the next February to similar negative reception.

In December 2014, Family Guy: Back to the Multiverse was removed from Steam.

Gameplay

Players control Stewie Griffin and Brian Griffin in an adventure that pitted them against Stewie's evil half-brother, Bertram. Back to the Multiverse featured both co-operative and competitive multiplayer modes built around the characters. Extra challenge levels, multiplayer maps, costumes, and playable Family Guy characters were unlocked through gameplay.

Plot

Brian and Stewie are spending time at home when Bertram appears out of nowhere in a flash of light. Stewie is appalled by this, as he had killed Bertram in the past. Bertram responds by explaining that he is from another reality where Stewie never killed him, and expresses his disgust that there exists a universe without him in it. Bertram then exclaims that because of this, he will build an army from all the depths of the Multiverse, and use it destroy Stewie's universe entirely. After Bertram uses his remote to travel out of their realm, Stewie takes out his own Multiverse remote and declares that he and Brian will stop Bertram at all costs. They then travel out of their world and try to track Bertram down, but are forced to encounter his army along the way. Some members of this army are characters from the TV series, such as Ernie the Giant Chicken, Long John Peter, Evil Stewie from "The Hand That Rocks the Wheelchair", Crippletron from "No Meals on Wheels", and Santa Claus' work-overwhelmed disfigured Christmas elves from "Road to the North Pole". Stewie and Brian follow Bertram through seven different universes that follow ten levels.

Stewie and Brian return to their universe in an airport. Peter, who is on the chicken ship held captive, comes back with Ernie, the giant chicken. When Stewie and Brian go to stop Bertram, Peter and the giant chicken engage in a furious battle. The showdown is taken outside, and Peter throws the giant chicken in an airplane engine, shredding him to pieces and presumably killing him. After the showdown, Peter walks away, but the giant chicken is still alive.

After Stewie and Brian make it to the town square, they are shocked to discover that their town has been purged into chaos. Bertram appears with a weaponized Tyrannosaurus and welcomes Stewie back home. Bertram had not been assembling armies within the universes Brian and Stewie had traveled to, but rather was simply trying to lure the two into dangerous environments to get rid of them. His assistant, Gus, was assembling an army of alternate reality versions of Bertram himself, which appear along with the T-Rex. Bertram exclaims that he has created a bomb that can exponentially tear a universe apart. Due to the fact that traveling through universes creates tears in reality, Bertram's bomb can expand these tears and start a chain reaction that will suck Stewie's entire universe into oblivion. The most tears in Stewie's world are near his house, as that is where Brian, Stewie, and Bertram all traveled out of. Bertram heads for the bomb to activate it. After the Tyrannosaurus ruthlessly devours an innocent bystander, Stewie and Brian arm themselves and battle both the Tyrannosaurus and Bertram's army. The fight continues all the way to Stewie's house, where two possible endings are present:

• If Stewie and Brian defeat the Tyrannosaurus, Bertram falls out, begs Stewie to not kill him, and offers Stewie to rule the multiverse with him. Stewie refuses, but rather than killing Bertram, he and Brian feed him to the Tyrannosaurus, who is then shot to death after eating Bertram. The Griffin family is happy that Stewie and Brian are okay, but Brian worries that another Bertram will come from another universe and try to destroy Stewie and Brian. Stewie says that will depend on how much money the game will make them, breaking the fourth wall.
• If the T-Rex makes it to the Griffin family house, Bertram declares his victory, activates the bomb within the T-Rex's back, and travels out of the universe. After the T-Rex eats Meg, Brian ponders what happens next, only for the entire world to be blown up. As Peter Griffin hurdles himself through the emptiness of space, he giggles and says, "You lose".

Development

According to Unseen64, ports for Wii and Nintendo 3DS were planned, but both were cancelled in August 2011 according to a former employee of Heavy Iron Studios, due to the focus "on making one version of the game and growing concerns about how [the game] would perform on those platforms." As a result, it was not released on any Nintendo systems.

Reception

Reception
Review scores Publication Score PC PS3 Xbox 360 Destructoid N/A N/A 2/10 EGM N/A N/A 5.5/10 Game Informer N/A N/A 4.5/10 GameZone N/A N/A 2/10 Giant Bomb N/A N/A IGN N/A 6/10 6/10 OPM (AU) N/A 6/10 N/A OXM (US) N/A N/A 4.5/10 PC Gamer (UK) 20% N/A N/A Polygon N/A N/A 3/10 Digital Spy N/A N/A Metro N/A N/A 2/10 Aggregate score Metacritic 42/100 40/100 39/100

Family Guy: Back to the Multiverse received "generally unfavorable" reviews on all platforms according to the review aggregation website Metacritic.

Andrew Reiner of Game Informer said that half of the Xbox 360 version is done exceptionally well, while the other half is the polar opposite. He also stated, "The gameplay could fuel any generic shooter, and doesn't feel like it belongs with this property." The game received a mixed review from IGN who said of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions, "There's a lot to enjoy, but none of it will knock your socks off." Official Xbox Magazine UK's review was a questionnaire in which the reader could score the game themselves, with the final score out of ten being decided by how many boxes they ticked, the final box being "I'm a frothing imbecile who deserves nothing of value in my life." The review concluded that the game was for "no-one. Not even people who like the TV show" and "These writers hate humanity." The only positive mention given of the game was "It certainly looks the part."

Edd Harwood of The Digital Fix gave the PS3 version three out of ten, saying that it was "a really bad game. It is not the worst game though because some games I play do not work sometimes or are even more stupid. Family Guy: Back to the Multiverse is at least a game that I can play and shoot things, and maybe laugh at something that reminds me of the show. But the shooting is really bad. The multiplayer is also not so bad. But I would much rather watch the show. Or play something else." Digital Spy gave the Xbox 360 version one star out of five and stated, "There is surely scope to make a decent Family Guy game - just imagine an adventure or puzzle title littered with acerbic humor and smart observations. But as a shooter, Back to the Multiverse is a hopelessly moronic, completely pointless experience that will please neither Family Guy fans nor people who enjoy games. In this case, the joke is most definitely on us." Metro GameCentral gave said console version a similar score of a two out of ten and called it "a return to the very worst standards of video game tie-ins, with terrible gameplay and an equally incompetent attempt to mimic the show's humour."

External links

• Official website
• MobyGames is a commercial database website that catalogs information on video games and the people and companies behind them via crowdsourcing. This includes over 300,000 games for hundreds of platforms. Founded in 1999, ownership of the site has changed hands several times. It has been owned by Atari SA since 2022.

Features

Edits and submissions to the site (including screenshots, box art, developer information, game summaries, and more) go through a verification process of fact-checking by volunteer "approvers". This approval process after submission can range from minutes to days or months. The most commonly used sources are the video game's website, packaging, and credit screens. There is a published standard for game information and copy-editing. A ranking system allows users to earn points for contributing accurate information.

Registered users can rate and review games. Users can create private or public "have" and "want" lists, which can generate a list of games available for trade with other registered users. The site contains an integrated forum. Each listed game can have its own sub-forum.

History

Logo used until March 2014

MobyGames was founded on March 1, 1999, by Jim Leonard and Brian Hirt, and joined by David Berk 18 months later, the three of which had been friends since high school. Leonard had the idea of sharing information about computer games with a larger audience. The database began with information about games for IBM PC compatibles, relying on the founders' personal collections. Eventually, the site was opened up to allow general users to contribute information. In a 2003 interview, Berk emphasized MobyGames' dedication to taking video games more seriously than broader society and to preserving games for their important cultural influence.

In mid-2010, MobyGames was purchased by GameFly for an undisclosed amount. This was announced to the community post factum , and the site's interface was given an unpopular redesign. A few major contributors left, refusing to do volunteer work for a commercial website.{{Citation needed|date=June 2025} On December 18, 2013, MobyGames was acquired by Jeremiah Freyholtz, owner of Blue Flame Labs (a San Francisco-based game and web development company) and VGBoxArt (a site for fan-made video game box art). Blue Flame Labs reverted MobyGames' interface to its pre-overhaul look and feel, and for the next eight years, the site was run by Freyholtz and Independent Games Festival organizer Simon Carless.

On November 24, 2021, Atari SA announced a potential deal with Blue Flame Labs to purchase MobyGames for $1.5 million. The purchase was completed on 8 March 2022, with Freyholtz remaining as general manager. Over the next year, the financial boost given by Atari led to a rework of the site being built from scratch with a new backend codebase, as well as updates improving the mobile and desktop user interface. This was accomplished by investing in full-time development of the site instead of its previously part-time development.

In 2024, MobyGames began offering a paid "Pro" membership option for the site to generate additional revenue. Previously, the site had generated income exclusively through banner ads and (from March 2014 onward) a small number of patrons via the Patreon website.

On February 13, 2025, Freyholtz stepped down as the site lead to move onto new projects, leaving operations to Tracy Poff, a veteran coder on the site, and Atari staff.

See also

• IGDB – game database used by Twitch for its search and discovery functions