Invincible and The Strolling Useless manufacturing firm Skybound Leisure is increasing its online game pursuits with a brand new in-house recreation studio known as Quarter Up. The studio’s debut recreation can be Invincible VS, a tag-team combating recreation based mostly on Skybound founder Robert Kirkman’s superhero comedian Invincible, which gained widestream reputation after a profitable animated adaptation debuted on Amazon Prime. The workforce is led by govt producer (and co-founder) Mike Willette, previously of Double Helix Video games, which developed the 2013 combating recreation Killer Intuition.
A conventional leisure firm like Skybound forming its personal recreation studio is an uncommon sight to see in 2025. Skybound, like many house owners of notable franchises, beforehand licensed its properties to recreation studios like Telltale Video games, makers of The Strolling Useless: The Telltale Sequence and its sequels. The corporate spent 2024 hiring a variety of recreation business executives like former Activision Blizzard vp of product administration Chris Paulson, seeming to sign an expanded curiosity within the online game business.
It additionally ran a crowdfunding marketing campaign for an unnamed triple-A recreation set on the planet of Invincible. A Skybound spokesperson confirmed to Sport Developer that the $678,000 it raised within the marketing campaign is getting used to assist “a number of tasks” at Quarter Up, together with Invincible VS.
Paulson—now govt vp and basic supervisor of Skybound Video games—defined to Sport Developer in an interview that the corporate is pursuing an in-house recreation studio technique in an effort to extra productively convey its comedian ebook properties to the world of video video games. “There’s simply naturally obstacles like contracts, relationships and approval rights” stated Paulson in reference to the method of working with exterior licensors. He defined that as a result of Quarter Up is an in-house studio, Kirkman is ready to commonly drop in and evaluation the sport with none uncommon go-between.
Skybound’s resolution for its fist foray into in-house recreation growth to be a combating recreation can be a stunning flip of occasions. The combating recreation style has been brutal (pun supposed) for builders to interrupt into. Even the multimillion greenback library of Warner Bros. characters could not assist Multiversus developer Participant First Video games break into the aggressive combating recreation group (FGC)—a passionate however hard-to-attract viewers fiercely connected to core franchises like Road Fighter and Mortal Kombat. Uncommon indie surprises just like the Rivals of Aether collection have managed to interrupt by means of, however few big-budget rivals have landed a killing blow.
Breaking into this world means making a recreation that stands out, and like many combating recreation designers, Willette has his private bugbears about what it takes to tug that off. He stated one main objective on the studio can be to draw new gamers not simply by means of the lineup of Invincible characters, but additionally a “tag” system that offers gamers instruments to interrupt out of advanced enemy combos by swapping characters. “There’s different combating video games the place it may be a ‘slideshow’ the minute you get touched,” he stated, referring to how profitable combos are tough to interrupt out of in video games like Road Fighter 6.
He rattled off a variety of different options meant to create extra interactivity between the 2 gamers, inevitably taking a breath and realizing he was about to start out a GDC discuss on combating recreation design. “I might discuss for hours and hours about this,” he stated. It is not simply the espresso, I swear.”
Skybound subsidiary Quarter Up can be leaning on outsourcing companions
A substantial query corporations face when founding new recreation studios in high-GDP nations like the USA is certainly one of price administration. Making a tag-team combating recreation isn’t any simple feat, and it may be tough to show a revenue on this aggressive style.
Paulson and Wilette defined to Sport Developer that Quarter Up can be tackling that downside by relying a comparatively small core workforce of builders, whereas counting on outsourcing and co-development companions companions to scale up manufacturing. Wilette defined that Quarter Up’s core workforce focuses on fight design animation, netcode, and different must-haves foundational skillsets for combating recreation growth.
It is one other instance of how in a tumultuous recreation market, firm founders are sticking to smaller and smaller core groups whereas outsourcing labor that requires extra headcount.
“For my part, the mannequin of make a brand new recreation is it’s a must to hold the core of the workforce small and environment friendly with the intention to adapt to how individuals react to your product,” stated Paulson. “The final recreation I labored on was Diablo IV, and we had a whole bunch and a whole bunch of individuals, however we knew what the viewers is for that.”
“We do not precisely know what the viewers is for Invincible VS but, and we wish to have the ability to develop with the viewers, versus attempting to pressure a sure scale.”
