Velma is done calling the police in MultiVersus as of Thursday’s patch

Velma is one of the most intelligent and well-organized members of Scooby-Doo’s gang. And while she can’t see a thing without her glasses, she’s absolutely the most likely member of the squad to solve any given mystery. But, MultiVersusThe Super Smash Bros.-like fighting game filled with Warner Bros. characters, she’s a total narc — or, rather, she was.

One of the strangest aspects of Velma’s character in MultiVersus Her ability to summon the fuzz upon solving a mystery, which was simply involving collecting clues from the arena. A police car would then roll up on Velma’s victim, throw them in back seat, and attempt to drive them off the stage. It’s a clever idea. It is. It is funny to see a police car rolling up in 2022 and causing havoc. This game features Black characters including LeBron James. But not so.

America is experiencing a high level of distrust in police officers. With some cops facing penalties for crime committed on duty while others getting away with abuses or power due to their badges, it’s clear that Americans are becoming more suspicious of the police. It’s clear now to many Americans — although this has long been obvious to marginalized and oppressed folks in this country — that the police are not the “good guys” they are depicted as in shows like Scooby-Doo.

It’s with that slow but steady cultural shift in mind that some MultiVersus players winced at the choice to have Velma call the cops — a small group of fans even started an online petition to remove the cops from Velma’s ability, and replace it with the Mystery Machine. And that’s exactly what Player First Games did.

In Thursday’s patch, the notes included this bit about Velma’s passive ability: “Instead of calling the police, Velma now solves the mystery and calls the Mystery Inc. gang and the Mystery Machine to take the bad guys away.”

Although it may be small, this change takes some of the gloom out of an otherwise absurd ability and keeps its charm. Fred and Daphne won’t let the heat roll in on Steven Universe, Jake the Dog or LeBron James. Instead, they will just drive them around in their hippie van. The same result with fun cartoon characters, instead of state soldiers.

As the petition calls out, the police aren’t necessary to MultiVersus’ gameplay or even the in-game spectacle of a character calling in a whole-ass car to do their bidding. So it’s nice to see Player First Games work to improve an issue that inadvertently sends the wrong message to players and makes a group of fans uncomfortable while playing an otherwise silly cartoon fighting game.