It’s better not to play Invincible against At a zombie pace, lest the playable Mark Grayson become unbeatable.
Invincible against It’s an action-packed fighting game designed by Robert Kirkman, the man behind it The walking deadand his new game development studio, Quarter Up, a subsidiary of Skybound Entertainment. From comics to TV to games, Kirkman’s latest releases are available today on Xbox Series The three-on-three fighter features a roster of 18 characters from invincible universe, including an all-new original fighter.
I got the game a bit early, and — when my kids weren’t looking — beat out the gore of heroes and villains in its combo action. Hey, someone She got Earth’s protection from Omni-Man.
He reads Hollywood ReporterQ&A with Kirkman Invincible against Executive producer Mike Willett below.
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What comic strip makes a good TV adaptation which in turn makes a good game adaptation?
Kirkman I think the one thing that really helps me, in my experience, is long-running comics. you know, forsaken It was happening while we were making the show, and that was a much more difficult process. with invincible and walking dead -I think we have 80 cases walking dead When the show started, and with invinciblewe got 144 complete issues. I believe that the monthly format of comics requires work, progress, intrigue, and suspense, because there are monthly gaps between each issue. You’re trying to excite your audience as much as possible and leave them with a moment that will sustain them during that month-long gap. I think comics, because of that function, translate naturally to television. When we sit to adjust invinciblewe have three possible cliffhangers in almost every episode. We have four possible endings in every part of the book that we’re adapting, so we have to pick and choose, like, “Okay, where are our big moments going to go?”
As far as this being implemented in video games, it results in an action-packed, action-based story that translates well to any number of genres, especially fighting games. I think in particular, the thing you need [most for a fighting game] It is an expanded cast. One of the things that fighting games do very well is focus on individual characters and show how great they are, allowing you to get to know them a little more. Each character in the fighting game is basically the main character if you choose to play with them.
Why three out of three? Were there any specific challenges that came with so many characters in combat?
Willett When we really wanted to start working on this game, they would say, “Mike, what do you want to build?” I say: “I want to build invincible As a fierce and brutal fighting game. Like tournament quality, it should be Shit“, right? It’s not just one character and you’re learning a deck – your deck actually consists of three characters, and bringing those characters together is an expression of character and self. It’s also the knowledge you want to develop. When I think about invincibleI always think about things like Teen Team, The Guardians, The Order, The Lizard League, The Viltrumites – you have these factions that are always fighting. So it made perfect sense to bring these concepts together.
So basically, I go back to my childhood playing on the mat, whether it’s with He-Man, or the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or the Transformers, or the GI Joes – you can play with them and set up scenarios. And you’re almost looking at it in a two-dimensional plane, because you’re playing with your left hand, your right hand. One hand hits the other. For me, it’s a kind of daydreaming, exploring – I have to make things happen, and I can do that in this digital space and create my own scenario. So I think video games take on a life of their own, where it’s like they’re authentic and support what the franchise is about, and then we let people play with us. To me, this is the most honorable thing you can do.
Lots of invincible Characters fly – did this create unique technical challenges in making a 2D fighting game?
Willett You want to have verticality because it adds another depth to the play: that function of who can fly versus who can’t fly and what does that mean, and how does it express itself in anyone’s individual collection? For example, Eve has an eight-way navigation system. They can actually hover, and they can move in all directions. But not all of our posts are capable of that because you want to have exclusivity in their toolset, so their attack vectors are different. So why would I play this character versus that character? Well, it’s because of the way I like to move. Some characters have what we call a “triangle jump,” which means I can jump into the air very quickly, and they come down right away. This presents gameplay challenges for your opponent. They’re like, “Oh, I have to be very defensive-minded with someone who has that kind of ability, because they’ll try to shut me down and then call on their teammates to try to what we call ‘confuse me,’ which means they’re giving me high attacks and low attacks almost simultaneously.”
But in this type of game, we really think about what happens when the heroes get hit and when they get blocked. So you always want to have defensive options, and we always want you to be paying attention to the screen, no matter what’s going on. In some games, you’re only touched once and just see a compiled slideshow – but not here. You have chances to break their combo. Your teammates can come and mess it up… It’s like a rock, paper, scissors type event where they can try to lure you and pretend they’re coming with their teammates. We have a lot of mechanics that encourage back and forth combat as you can see in the demo. We always want you to pay attention to the intensity of the battles, and try to have a few moments of rest before getting back to the tough stuff.
There will be a lot of comparisons with Mortal Kombat. They’re both fighting games, and both are very bloody – and your Omni-Man was a downloadable character in them MK1. How did he get there?
Kirkman I’ve been begging Ed Boon for years. Yes, I’ve had meetings with Ed Boon Mortal Kombat 11. And yeah, I think it’s too late in the game. They have already locked all the DLC characters. And honestly, I’ve been trying to get into the corner for years walking dead Characters in Mortal Kombat. It’s been years and years and years of begging. Then I think at some point, someone came up to them and said, “Hey, this invincible “The show is really blowing up, and people are asking for Omni-Man to be in the game.” And he was like, “Wait a minute. I think I know this guy,” and it all happened very quickly.
You have cooler friendships than me.
Kirkman I’m not friends with Ed Boon, I’ve been hounding him for years and begging him[for my characters]. [togetmycharactersinMortal Kombat]. I’d like to be friends with Ed Boon, to be clear. I don’t know why I had to put that in the log.
Omni-Man was in Mortal Kombat Proof of concept development Invincible against?
Kirkman [They were] Mostly offline. I think it was just, “Oh, this guy works in a fighting game.”
One of the reasons I was always begging him to put in some of my characters Mortal Kombat It’s that I’m a big fan of fighting games. We were thinking about doing… invincible A fighting game anyway – before the TV show, in fact. The timing has never been right [before now]but it was all just kind of ether.
What do you guys play these days in your free time?
Willett I was checking the latest [patch] to Tekken 8. So I work there. I play Brian (Fury) a little bit, but usually I get my ass kicked. So I’m going to cycle through some of the fighters, depending on what spots appear. I haven’t played wrestling in a while, so I moved on to the new one WWE (2K26), yes, because I saw Monday Night Wars Edition. I was like, “Ah, shit.” I just had to do it. That was the height of my wrestling fandom.
Kirkman I play Apex Legends A little – I’m terrible at it. I worked in fortnite. I often spend my time playing Mario games when I’m not playing Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter 6 Or the big fighting game going on right now.
Same thing, Robert, in terms of being terrible. The frustrating part of modern gaming for us older people with jobs and families is not being able to actually compete with kids online. You get killed or defeated easily, it’s not fun.
Kirkman Recently, I jumped summit. I’m playing against randos, and an angelic voice comes out, [high-pitch to mimic a child] “you suck!”
