Invincible VS is a 3×3 tag team fighter set in the world of the hit comic and television series. I was going to write an interesting introduction to get you hooked, but that should be enough. Published by Skybound Entertainment and developed by Quarter Up, the new tag team fighter has an easy entry for newcomers to the genre, but enough defensive depth to keep longstanding fans of fighters engaged long past one match.
Invincible VS is the debut game for Quarter Up, Skybound Entertainment’s brand new studio made up of developers from Activision Blizzard, Amazon Game Studios, Double Helix Games, Riot Games, Naughty Dog, Netflix and more. Most importantly, however, is that the 40+ member team includes key members of Double Helix Games, who worked on Killer Instinct (2013). And that devoted fighting game knowledge shows.
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This title is also the first major game set in the Invincible universe based on the acclaimed comic book series by Robert Kirkman, Cory Walker, and Ryan Ottley. Built from the ground up, the game features fan-favorite characters, iconic locations, bone-breaking combos, and promises to hit tournament-quality gameplay.
Invincible VS may have a simplified control scheme, but the depth is there.
Following the Xbox Showcase, we had the chance to go hands-on with Invincible VS. While there were significantly more than four characters to choose from, judging by the character boxes, for this demo, we had access to a female Viltrimite, Atom Eve, Invincible, and Bulletproof.
Right from the beginning, the game’s visuals perfectly blend the thick illustrated lines in the comic series and Prime Video’s animated series. That solid aesthetic blending finds itself in the 3D space without sacrificing the artistic quality that Invincible is known for. When it comes to the individual characters, they each will have different costumes and colors, par for the course in a fighting game. But where Invincible VS excels is in Quarter Up’s attention to gore.
As you fight your opponent, the costumes tear, their bodies get bloody, and every large attack that usually kills an opponent shakes the stage, adding more damage and capturing the destruction heroes bring wherever they fight. It’s a nod to the series, but it also shows that the team at Quarter Up focuses on bringing the series to life in the game, which will be important to players who pick it up simply because of the IP it’s situated in.
Invincible VS is bloody, fast, and just a whole lot of fun.
More importantly, I think, for Invincible fans, the finishers are astoundingly violent. Accentuated by their taunts, the finishing moves for every fight are a marvel. Ripped-off heads are just the start, but the best part of it all is the dedication to the ultraviolence of the source material. If Omniman did it to the Guardians of the Globe, it’s probably a possibility here. This also reflects the studio’s signature approach to visceral combat, from their history at other studios.
Regarding the control scheme, Invincible VS has a simplified control scheme at default, making comboing an automatic achievement. This helps make the game accessible to new players in the genre; however, what players can pull off when it comes to defense and tagging in new members is what makes the game start to hit a sweet spot when it comes to depth.
You can execute combo breakers while defending, tag assists that can interrupt at just the right time, and defense gets practical. With as easy as it is to combo, there is also a counter on how long it can go for, only reset by ending or by calling in one of your teammates to effectively lower the counter and add more hits to keep it going. Where traditional blocks and a combo breaking push can give you distance, timing an attack to interrupt a tag can easily change the course of a fight.
Blocking and interrupts have received just as much attention as combos.
Invincible VS offers players ease, but the developers also make up for that easy on-ramp with speed. While it’s clear that the game will not be difficult to play, it does stand to be one that will be challenging to master. Ultimately, with such quick gameplay, there is little time to react, whether that’s on defense or offense. That speed makes the gameplay extremely tactile, and as a tag-team fighter, timing your tag-ins and outs and countering them are of greater importance as well.
One of the core questions I had for the developers in my session was how they approached balancing the characters. When it comes to in-game authenticity, the power of a Viltrimite (or even just Invincible) will easily be higher than Bulletproof. While the developer I spoke with said that their goal would be to keep every character viable, especially to push tournament play.
Still, one has to wonder how you keep things authentic while adding lesser-powered characters. That said, without restricting the roster, the wide world of the series comes into focus. While balancing will ultimately be a concern until we get more time with the game, the character type and playstyle diversity this brings to the table is something that you can’t underestimate.
Quarter Up’s attention to detail in bringing Invincible to life makes this 3×3 fighter strong.
While we’ll have to see that once the full roster is in play for Invincible VS, the developer running my session did show off that the animations involved for characters are tailored to their specific powers within canon. That means that characters who can’t fly will have a simple double jump, and those who can, like Mark, can stay in the air longer.
Additionally, for a character like Atom Eve, she hovers instead. Those minor variances in techniques do impact their power sets and how they play. Finding those nuances will help tiering for competition play and prolonged meta-building. And, when it comes to fun, you can’t really beat the victory animations and that will feel good in a competition.
Invincible VS still has further to go, but what Quarter Up showed off is beyond exciting for fighter fans and Invincible lives alike. Authenticity to the series is clear from the ground up, and the dedication to bringing Invincible to life through even the smallest details in the characters is immediately apparent. But more importantly, when you play the game, you can tell this team loves fighters. It’s that latter aspect that will set this title up for success.
Invincible VS will release in 2026 for Xbox Series X|S and Steam.
