Invincible VS is joining the fray of forthcoming tag fighting games, alongside Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls and Riot’s 2XKO. We spoke with the devs at Evo 2025, who told us how they fit into this upcoming explosion in the genre and what’s next for the game.
Quarter Up, the development team behind Invincible VS, is made up of Killer Instinct alumni and hardcore fighting game fans. It’s easy to see the care with which they’ve translated Skybound Studios’ comic book adaptation into a fighting game that meshes elements from beloved titles like Mortal Kombat, Killer Instinct and even Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3.
It’s for these reasons that they’re excited to be part of the upcoming surge in tag fighting games. While it seems like a highly competitive environment, with both 2XKO and Marvel Tokon vying for players’ attention, it isn’t all about one-upping the other tag games coming out. For Quarter Up, it’s about giving fans even more awesome titles to love.
Invincible VS devs are embracing the tag fighter competition
We sat down with Invincible VS’s art director, Dan Eder, after playing a newer build of the game at Evo, where he told us that Quarter Up’s ultimate goal is to stand out against their peers in the tag fighter space to make even more awesome experiences for the entire community to enjoy.
“First of all, we embrace the competition,” Eder told us. “We think it’s healthy for the fighting game community. We always want there to be good sportsmanship, because at the end of the day, we love Marvel. We have a huge amount of admiration for Arc System Works and what they’ve been doing, and as our art director, I love the art style.
“But we also want to make sure that we’re creating a wholly unique experience, and I think the fact that both of our games are tag fighters does not mean that they’re the same game. For example, you can play an RPG, but that doesn’t mean you don’t want to play a different RPG later on.
“I think there’s gonna be a lot of added value in playing both. I don’t think it’s gonna feel like the same game, but I also encourage people to find what suits their preferences and what they love.”
Small studio, fast development cycle
It’s impressive how far Invincible VS has come in the two months since we last sat down with a pre-Alpha build of the game at Skybound Studios. Since then, two new characters have been announced, the UI has been cleaned up, new voice overs have been added, and animations were improved. Things are looking right on track for a 2026 release — a fact the community has been noticing and comparing to 2XKO’s lengthy development cycle.
This is even more impressive considering that Quarter Up is a much smaller team with far less resources to go around. Eder told us that Skybound’s entire staff is comprised of around 200 people total, with Quarter Up making up about 50 of those members. And while the ball is rolling quickly now, it follows a lengthy planning period where drastic changes were made to the game’s overall direction.
“ We’re fast now,” he explained. “We had a very long foundational stage where we failed fast. We wanted to test out different options. If you go back to earlier concept art, you would see some wild sh*t.
“It took us a while to find our footing. When I was brought on about a year and a half ago, there was a bit of a pivot. They had a different direction for the art, and then they saw my work and said, ‘Okay, we want that for a game.’ And I’m like, ‘Okay, how do we do that interpretive process and make it look good, but also look like Invincible?’
“We went through a very long stage, but once we found a rhythm and we hired the right people, we built what I call the ‘dream team’ of artists that we handpicked. The ball has been rolling ever since then. We already have all the systems in place. We have our best practices, we have the pipeline. We know exactly what the creation of a character entails from the first concept stage, all the way to their final design and VFX.
“Everything is very carefully calculated. We have multiple review passes to make sure everyone’s happy about the character or about a certain gameplay mechanic or a new environment, that kind of stuff. We’re making sure that we’re making progress, but again, not at the expense of its visual fidelity.”
The challenge in appealing to FGC diehards and new players
Invincible VS is heavily focused on appealing to both newcomers and fighting game die-hards, as evidenced by their presence at Evo and the employment of FGC vets like Rip. In fact, Quarter Up had a special broadcast with famous fighting game streamer Maximillian Dood at Evo, where they broke down special gameplay mechanics and revealed the introduction of a special streamer mode that turns off blood and gore, as well as the addition of traditional inputs for special moves.
Beforehand, Invincible VS’s special moves were mapped to one button, which changed depending on what direction players’ pressed. Now, they can choose between using this method — which is more appealing to fighting game newbies — or go for the classic way of getting a special using a combination of joystick movements and button presses.
“We want everything we’re doing with this game to be inviting and accessible to casual gamers,” Eder said. “But we want that depth that’s gonna lead to a strong esports movement where people can play competitively. I think the closer we get to launch, the more we’re gonna be able to formally announce events, just like how we didn’t announce coming to Evo back when we first revealed the game. It sort of happened gradually.
“Right now, we’re just focused on getting the game to a good spot. We’re trying to focus on the core mechanics and making sure it’s watertight and it’s amazing to play. As it gets closer to launch, that’s when we’re going to gradually announce more of these sorts of events.
“We want people to celebrate the game, and of course, the fact that the FGC’s so heavily involved already is pretty telling, right? We want their input, because we wanna set ourselves on the trajectory to take place in these sorts of events.”
Quarter Up has plans for future Invincible VS support
Quarter Up has told us on two separate occasions that they are making plans to introduce a competitive circuit for the game, but right now, they’re focusing on tightening up what they’ve got and making it a perfect product before pursuing the next major World Tour.
And don’t worry — Eder confirmed that there is post-launch content planned for Invincible VS, including DLC characters and alternate costumes, some of which have appeared in the show and comics and others that are completely original creations.
Invincible VS is set to release in 2026 on Windows, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S. While there’s no specific date just yet, the team at Quarter Up told us there’s much more in store for the game in the next year up until launch.
“ We want the studio and the game to be sustainable. We wanna make sure that we’re treating our team fairly and that we’re creating a healthy work environment. We are fully focused on Invincible VS, making sure it’s a tight experience. And I think as we get closer to launch, obviously things are gonna ramp up in terms of future projects, as well.”
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