Invincible fighting game’s ultraviolent brawls save a bloodless story mode

The violence of the Invincible animated show is ever-present in Invincible VS, the tag-team fighter from developer Quarter Up and publisher Skybound Games. Every attack sends blood flying across the screen, and fighters never walk away from the fray without first being covered in red.

The brutally kinetic action is on par with the comic’s and TV show’s best fight scenes. But Quarter Up didn’t just intend to make a bloody fighter. The developer wanted to also tell a story on par with the Invincible animated series in Invincible VS, and the absence of reflection on violence and its aftereffects means the narrative component never quite reaches the same heights as the show. The story mode is fighting for the sake of fighting — but that fighting is damn good.

Invincible, the superhero alter ego of Mark Grayson, begins the TV series with a black-and-white view on killing — it’s wrong — and by season 4, the show’s latest, he’s forced to reevaluate that stance after he kills an enemy. That death almost prompts him to hang it up for good, but his world, and the galaxy at large, need him. Watching Mark’s arc play out over the course of season 4 right before diving into an Invincible VS match was interesting as Mark, in my first fight, exploded an enemy into bloody chunks via an “overkill” mechanic without a second thought.

That grotesque finisher occurred in a regular match, where the violence itself is exhilarating; facing down opponent after opponent in an arcade ladder never gets old. Each fighter has attacks you’d expect from a 2.5D fighting game; you’ll string together light, medium, and heavy attacks, with some special attacks thrown in. Because so many of Invincible’s characters’ superpowers are just “punch really hard,” those special attacks are mostly variations of, well, punching really hard. The abundance of Viltrumites, the extremely strong imperialistic alien race known for their mustaches, on the roster means other characters like Atom Eve, Rex Splode, and newcomer Ella Mental — think of her like an Avatar controlling the elements — all stand out. While they certainly punchy-punch their fair share through fights, their unique powers allow them to mix up gameplay.

Though, even the Viltrumites stand well on their own. Prior to getting hands-on with Invincible VS, I was worried that every fighter would feel the same. In a way, Viltrumites are basically Superman without the freeze breath and heat vision. An Injustice roster half-filled with Supermans wouldn’t be too engaging.

That worry is assuaged with the full game. While those Viltrumites do just have super punch powers, they dispose of opponents in different ways. Cullen is a grappler, launching himself at opponents and throwing them to the ground. Anissa is precise, quickly striking foes with her hand in the shape of a blade that Viltrumites love all too well. (Thankfully, no intestines spill out in Invincible VS.) I’ve always wondered how practical Thula’s braid blade is considering how often foes grab it in the show, but it’s extremely deadly in Invincible VS, allowing Thula to attack from a distance other Viltrumites can’t reach from. All in all, Invincible VS’s roster is well varied, even though a large chunk of its fighters have overlapping power sets.

Scrums in Invincible VS are 3v3 affairs, outside of a few story mode fights. Tagging in a teammate can help you fend off an attack, set up an opponent for a combo, or continue a combo string by having a new character swap in with an active tag. Success in Invincible VS means knowing how to leverage the tag system to your advantage. Keeping teammates waiting in the wings is also vital to winning as they’ll regain portions of health while catching a breather on the bench.

But success can also be found even when players don’t fully take advantage of the game’s systems. Plenty of fighting games are notoriously difficult to break into for newcomers who just want to button mash their way to victory, and Invincible VS is definitely newcomer-friendly. Stringing together a light attack combo can automatically trigger a super attack, and supers are some of fighters’ strongest — and bloodiest — moves. Button mashing those light attack combos can get you on the path toward victory (speaking from some experience here) while also making you feel like you’re pulling off a sick sequence. Spending some time in the detailed tutorial will behoove fighting game newcomers as well as experienced players too.

Most of your time will be spent climbing arcade mode ladders or hopping in and out of local and online versus matches. While there is a story mode Quarter Up had high aspirations for, don’t expect it to be a multi-hour affair like NetherRealm Studios’ genre counterparts. Quarter Up has stated that it wanted Invincible VS’s single-player campaign to feel like an episode of the show, and Invincible writer and co-executive producer Helen Leigh and Invincible creator Robert Kirkman even had a hand in crafting it. “I always thought it was really interesting that they explored sort of like the psyche elements of things and what it does to someone to have their dad smash you through a bunch of people in a subway,” narrative director Mike Rogers told Game Informer.

But even with cross-pollination between the game and the show’s behind-the-scenes talent, Invincible VS fails to tell an emotional narrative. Fights play out for fighting’s sake with no narrative momentum between then; it’s a plot with no stakes.

An easy contrast is to NetherRealm’s stories in its Mortal Kombat and Injustice games. In them, narrative stakes are often established before fights and characters are given arcs. Not so in Invincible VS. Instead, you just hop between bouts without much reason. Mark and Omni-Man might fight in one, a cutscene will play (of them fighting), and then they’ll fight again, but as part of a team this time. There are no emotional beats or character development in Invincible VS’s story, and because of that it can’t reach the emotional highs of the Invincible episode it wants to be. If anything, it’s more akin to an anime filler arc’s side adventure that’s easily forgotten.

Invincible VS’s gameplay is deeper than it might seem at first blush, with varied fighters and an easy-to-grasp, hard-to-master tag system central to fights. I just wish that applied to the story mode, too. It never achieves the same depth its gameplay has or its source material is known for. I haven’t thought much about the repercussions of violence in Invincible VS, but I’ve certainly had a good time dishing it out.

Invincible VS is out now on PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X. The game was reviewed on PlayStation 5 using a prerelease download code provided by Skybound Games. You can find additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.