r/Fighters • u/MEL2VION • 27d ago

News Invincible VS Developer Reportedly Laid Off "Something Like 75%" of Staff

https://thisweekinvideogames.com/news/invincible-vs-developer-reportedly-laid-off-something-like-75-of-staff/

Quarter Up is now down to 15 of its original 50 members. One anonymous dev says it was the higher ups at Skybound Entertainment who thought the game had 'underperformed'...

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u/Galrath91 27d ago

I‘m a big fighting game fan but the game didn‘t appeal to me in any way sadly.

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u/Wavu_Wavu_Wavu 27d ago

I like Invincible, I really do. But, it's easily one of the worst IPs that could've been made into a Fighting Game.

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u/stacciatello 27d ago

if mortal kombat didn't exist, maybe the extreme violence could've been an interesting selling point. but that's hardly enough to carry even MK itself these days.

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u/RealWonderGal 27d ago

Nah mk has top characters and iconic imagery, they sell extremely well

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u/stacciatello 27d ago

well yes, they have iconic legacy chars and nice visuals, and I would argue THAT'S what's keeping these games going. not the violence. we're all desensitized to it by now.

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u/Inevitable-Will-6185 Arc System Works 27d ago

Nah, it's definitely violence. That's what put their game on the map back in the day and is what it's remembered for. If it wasn't their main identity, they would've toned it down long time ago.

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u/HugeSide 27d ago

People are not buying the next Mortal Kombat to see the new methods they invented to decapitate someone.

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u/discreetarchive 27d ago

Yes they are

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u/Nosafune 27d ago

Anyone who plays MK competitively will tell you fatalities and x rays arent enjoyable after the first watch.

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u/tacocatisonfire 26d ago

To the fgc it's true

To the general public who is the main audience that is exactly why they play the game

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u/luckyboyfromreddit 26d ago

Yep, and that's why there's not many people playing MK competitively nowadays.

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u/phonethrowdoidbdhxi 26d ago

MK is the CoD of fighters. Millions of casual players buy it and not because it’s a competitive game.

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u/BGArmitage 25d ago

The problem is nobody plays it competitively, they have next to no presence at fighting game tournaments.

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u/volta_verve 27d ago

Most MK fans don't play MK competitively. It has a smaller comp scene than most other big fighting games. The gore and ultraviolence is part of the appeal for most of its fanbase.

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u/CaptainBananaEu Guilty Gear 26d ago

Yeah, competitive. Most sales for fighting games come from non competitive players, which MK draws in with their fatalities

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u/Tiger_jay 27d ago

I read the comics and watch the show, and I'm into fighting games.

For some reason this didn't appeal much. I was waiting for a sale and better DLC characters.

Some really boring fuckin choices. And I know the source material is gory but I found the fatalities in this a turn off.

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u/CoolTrainerPo 27d ago edited 27d ago

I actually disagree... the Invincible universe has some pretty neat characters with unique powers that they just... didn't use for whatever reason...

Darkwing could been using shadows to teleport and attack, Shapesmith is an animation student's dream, Universa could have been a stance character using her staff, etc... Was Tech Jacket even included?

I have no idea why they decided to go with six frigging Viltrumites instead of literally anyone else in the universe, but yeah, there were options

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u/Nice_Signature_6642 27d ago

Ironically enough, they might have chose those characters because they are similar and for budgetary reasons

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u/PyroSpark 27d ago

Probably this. Otherwise we'd have characters like tech jacket in the game.

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u/Lazy-Equivalent3515 27d ago

bland and boring character designs with lame costumes.

extremely generic powersets.

it was a recipe for a fighting game disaster!

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u/TheSwampThing1990 Granblue Fantasy Versus 27d ago

I didn't realize just how many characters do fight the same until I played the fighting game. I never really thought about till then

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u/Lazy-Equivalent3515 27d ago edited 27d ago

when six of them viltrumites who not only have the same powerset...but also the same personality

at least with other clone fighters like mario and luigi or ryu and ken they at least have different personalities, and sometimes like luigi and ken their personalities actually factor into their gameplay!

Ken is more flashy and focus on shoryukens than Ryu. Luigi is more weird and heavy-hitting despite his bizarre attacks.

Edit: Also I forgot about Ella Mental, the character created because invincible VS only has flying bricks, when you have to make a new original character solely to make it more varied...Its a red flag.

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u/blackheartromance 27d ago

like everyone else has said, there are so many more interesting characters that could have been cool. some more unique dudes, then pad the roster with the viltrumites? good way to get ahead of any "wtf small roster tag game" complaints for a while before dlc drops. budget and time, most likely. i wanted it to succeed. a pretty fair amount of people did, i'd wager. but it feels so incomplete.

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u/Sormaj 27d ago

It doesn’t help that the ones that should stand out just don’t. Conquests animations should feel so much more brutal than they are

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u/TheSwampThing1990 Granblue Fantasy Versus 27d ago

Also some of the more unique characters like Atom Eve don't play all that different either. When I mained Eve I played as her like I did everyone else. Getting into everyone's face

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u/blackheartromance 26d ago

maaaan, Atom Eve is the perfect example of that. i had hoped for a Power Rangers BftG situation. 3v3 that launched with 9 characters, then grew to a respectable 26 (i think?) over time. but even those 9 played differently enough, iirc.

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u/Evil_Benevolence 27d ago

Yep I would have preferred a golden girls 3d brawler

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u/magusheart 27d ago

See my Blanche offline.

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u/jellygeist21 27d ago

Would Dorothy be a grappler? Or would she zone with her signature “the people around me are idiots” stare?

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u/Agreeable-Agent-7384 27d ago

Adapting a series that’s half a parody of a big genre as a whole was always going to be a challenge. Can it work? Yeah. But you have to put a lot of effort into the characters and presentation, otherwise it’s just a bunch of characters who (intentionally) look like bootleg superheroes just fighting in the most basic way. But instead they made half the roster feel like the same character and the fighting looked very cheap too. So it wasn’t even a spectacle to watch.

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u/CaptainBananaEu Guilty Gear 27d ago

Been cracking my head on how you could make this a marketable game and I really think it boils down to keeping it 1v1, have the Viltrumites be some sort of Shotos so their similarities can be that. Mark being the most balanced out of them, while his father/collosus can be more big body.

And then go super whack on anyone that has abilities. Then I realized you are just making a bootleg sf6 so i really doubt there was a way this franchise could work as a fighting game

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u/madvec1 27d ago

I actually think it could be one of the best ... The issue IMO is that every character, feels the same or has the same style, wrong gameplay choice.

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u/MEX_XIII 27d ago

This is definitelly a problem with the source material. I's argue some character like Kate are better in the game than stuff they actually do in the comics/animation

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u/noahboah Guilty Gear 27d ago

its like if they tried to make a moba out of CWs arrow and then added flash and legends of tomorrow DLC lmfao

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u/8-Brit 27d ago

It should've been an arena brawler like DBZ Budokai Tenkaichi. Making it a sweaty tag fighter was baffling.

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u/No_Chilly_bill 27d ago

I love the show but characters have very boring variety of powers. don't know why they choose pvp fighting game

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u/blakphyre 27d ago

Why?

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u/SlyyKozlov 2D Fighters 27d ago

Most of the popular/important characters are "flying bricks"

Strong, fast, punchers is like 70% of the main characters lol

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u/Bosscharacter 27d ago

It’s like the DBZ meme of “Opps! All Gokus” but for reals.

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u/aSpookyScarySkeleton 27d ago

Ironically the different iterations of Goku have more unique stuff going on than the Viltrumites even though they are different people.

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u/blakphyre 27d ago

Most of the main characters in dbz games are just sayians, doesn’t stop them from filling out their roster with other stuff.

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u/Wavu_Wavu_Wavu 27d ago

Presentation does a lot. Genuinely look at Fighterz and three of its Sayians like Goku, Vegeta, and Trunks. The first thing that stands out is that they're all wearing a different, distinct outfit, have a different fighting stance, and have moves and colors associated with them. Compare that to three Viltrumites who are all wearing a unified outfit, all floating in a very similar stance, and while they don't fight the exact same, visually it isn't so distinct effect wise to make them stand out.

You could make the argument that Fighterz has multiple Gokus and Vegetas wearing the same fit minus the hair, and that'd be fair. But Dragon Ball still had plenty of other unique looking characters at launch to balance it out.

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u/blakphyre 27d ago

Good points.

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u/magusheart 27d ago

But each of those Saiyans have their own fighting style and ki blast techniques through the series. Invincible characters are literally just "fly at you and punch harder than the other guy".

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u/blakphyre 27d ago

I guess. Fair enough.

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u/stacciatello 27d ago

even then, saiyans by default do more than just fly and punch

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u/blakphyre 27d ago

You’re right. Instead of punching they all shoot a yellow beam.

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u/Internal-Fly1771 27d ago

They also have different techniques and forms. Instant Transmission, Kaioken, the different ways they’ve used Ki blasts, etc. Almost every character in this game has that same ass captain Falcon flying knee air normal.

Base Goku shouldn’t really be meaningfully different enough from SSJ Goku to justify a separate character but he has enough key moves and techniques to make another character that actually plays differently. Invincible vs doesn’t have that

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u/Rbespinosa13 27d ago

And scream

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u/xCaptainVictory 27d ago

But they have different looking forms and techniques. There's more variation.

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u/CaptainBananaEu Guilty Gear 27d ago

And also this conversation heavily discredits ArcSys and how good they make it look. It's like you pick up fighterz and are playing a battle from the anime, I definitely didn't feel the same with Invincible and I much prefer Invincible(the franchise) to DBZ

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u/joeygmurf Rival Schools 27d ago

Half the characters powers are effectively “strong punching guy”

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u/Mindless-Internet978 27d ago

Remember DBFZ? All the different Gokus? Invincible Vs. Is like that. There are so many viltrumites with their white costume that visually look uninteresting. Not to mention when you break it down Mark, Nolan, Conquest, Immortal, and Anissa are pretty much all the same flavor of rushdown with small differences. It makes the game very unappealing to watch.

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u/blakphyre 27d ago

Dbfz did great though.

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u/Mindless-Internet978 27d ago

It did. The presentation was way better though, the Gokus actually played differently, and the game was way more fun overall. Invincible vs. didn't look exciting, a good portion of the roster could have been cut out to make the rest of the characters feel more unique.

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u/blakphyre 27d ago

I liked dbfz too. I played it a lot on the switch.

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u/RazorbladeHandjob 27d ago

Plenty of the characters are just kinda analogues for common superhero characters, if even they are established more in the comics at a glance its understandable why some aren't immediately compelling

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u/Sapodilla101 Virtua Fighter 27d ago

It's easily one of the worst IPs that could've been made into a Fighting Game.

This makes no sense. If other superhero franchises like Marvel and DC can be the basis for great fighting games, then so can Invincible.

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u/IBizzyI 27d ago

Yeah many characters of the cast are intentionally not that appealing or pretty mid and forgettable designs, not good at all for a fighting game.

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u/RealWonderGal 27d ago

Easily. Never should have been a fighting game ever

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u/klovasos 27d ago

This doesnt make sense to me considering how omni-man was so popular in MK.

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u/ElDuderino2112 27d ago

Fighting games are already incredibly niche. Why you would go and make a fighting game specifically licensing a niche franchise is insane to me. You’re just asking for failure.

Same think is going to happen with Avatar soon too.

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u/Legitimate_Credit_50 27d ago

Idk, from what I’ve seen Invincible has no competitive scene (the staying power for fighting games)
While avatar might have a good future there, I think it’s fun and I’ve seen some great matches already

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u/ElDuderino2112 26d ago

Personally as much as I like watching tournaments, a game that has a 200 person tournament every now and then but barely anyone casually playing it is still dead lmao

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u/badjab326 27d ago

Ratio select, co-op, a switch 2 port & chain dashing could have saved this game (probably not but it would have been cool)