“Invincible VS is a better fighting game than its IP origins had any right to produce. The tag mechanics are deep, the roster feels authentic, and online is where it truly comes alive. The story mode is embarrassingly thin and solo players will run out of content fast. But as a competitive and casual fighting experience, it absolutely delivers.”
The history of licensed fighting games is largely a history of disappointment. For every Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm that manages to transcend its source material and become a genuine fighting game on its own terms, there are a dozen games that slap a beloved property's faces onto functional-but-hollow combat engines and call it a day. Invincible VS, developed by Quarter Up and published by Skybound Games, arrives at a moment when the Invincible brand is one of the most culturally relevant superhero properties outside of Marvel and DC — and it could have coasted on recognition alone.
It didn't. What Quarter Up made is a legitimate fighting game. That's the most important thing to establish before getting into the details.
The Tag System: Where the Depth Lives
Invincible VS is a 3v3 tag fighter — build a team of three characters, switch between them during combat. Quarter Up has made specific choices about how the tag system works that make it feel like it belongs to this game rather than borrowed from predecessors.
Tags are quick but not free — there's a brief recovery window after switching that a skilled opponent can punish. Extension tags require specific meter, creating genuine resource management decisions mid-fight. Assist calls can be used defensively as well as offensively.
The result is a system with meaningful depth that reveals itself gradually. The first few hours feel like a 2D brawler where you occasionally switch characters. The next ten hours are spent realising that the tag interactions are actually the mechanical core, and that every match you lost in the first five hours was a lesson about positioning and meter management you didn't know you were receiving.
The Roster: Authenticity Over Balance
Ten characters at launch: Invincible, Atom Eve, Omni-Man (J.K. Simmons), Battle Beast, Robot, Monster Girl, Allen the Alien, Rex Splode, Bulletproof, and Thula. Each is designed to feel like the character they're representing.
Omni-Man is the game's most powerful character by a significant margin at launch — his damage output reflects his canonical status, which creates competitive balance issues the community is already discussing. Expect patches.
Monster Girl is the most mechanically interesting addition. Her mid-combat transformation between human and monster forms fundamentally changes her hitbox, movement options, and available attacks. Mastering when to transform is a skill curve of its own.
Atom Eve's zoning toolkit — placing persistent energy constructs in the environment — adds a spatial control element most of the roster can't counter without specific team compositions. J.K. Simmons reprising his Omni-Man voice role is predictably excellent. The full cast's contextual dialogue throughout matches — including specific exchanges when Invincible faces Omni-Man — is one of the game's most impressive implementations of its IP.
The Violence: Exactly What You'd Expect
The Invincible animated series built its reputation substantially on the specificity and consequence of its violence. The game commits to the same aesthetic. Invincible VS is gory, impacts have weight, and the viscera is calibrated to the franchise's tone rather than purely shock value. It's also often genuinely comedic — GamesRadar noted the "liberal application of viscera makes the whole thing feel comedic," and that's accurate.
The Story Mode: A Significant Disappointment
Here is where the score lives. The story mode is completable in under two hours and functions as a series of arcade ladder fights connected by brief dialogue scenes and still images. The visual novel presentation is functional but unambitious.
This is particularly frustrating given the source material available. The Invincible universe has four seasons of television and an extensive comic run worth of story to draw from. What shipped is a content skeleton that barely registers.
Offline modes beyond story are similarly thin — basic arcade mode, local versus, and tutorials. This is a game designed around online play, and it wears that priority openly.
Online: Where the Game Becomes What It Should Be
The online component is excellent. Rollback netcode is implemented correctly, which means matches feel responsive and fair. Matchmaking finds opponents at reasonable skill levels consistently. The lobby system allows friends to spectate and queue for the next match.
Quarter Up has confirmed post-launch DLC characters. A Season Pass structure has been announced. If the roster expands with the same quality as the launch ten, Invincible VS has the foundation to become a substantial competitive fighting game over its lifespan.
The Verdict
Invincible VS is a legitimately good fighting game wearing a licensed skin. Quarter Up understood the genre before they understood the IP, and that priority order produced a more mechanically sound game than the reverse would have.
The story mode is embarrassing, and solo players without online interests will run out of content in hours. But for the player who wants a solid competitive fighter with a roster of characters they genuinely enjoy, Invincible VS delivers. It's the game Invincible fans deserved in fighting game form.
The Good: 3v3 tag mechanics have genuine depth · Roster authenticity — every character feels like their source material · J.K. Simmons as Omni-Man is exactly what you want · Rollback netcode implemented correctly · Monster Girl's transformation mechanic is the most creative system in the game
The Not-So-Good: Story mode completable in under 2 hours · Solo content minimal at launch · Omni-Man clearly overpowered — patches needed · Balance will need work in the first few months
Reviewed on PS5. Additional testing on Xbox Series X. Code provided by Skybound Games.
