“Being together and doing hype stuff is important”: Invincible VS devs discuss locals, trash talk, and working with the FGC

I’ll admit, I was skeptical of Invincible VS. Not because it looked particularly bad or anything, but because I feel we already have too many fighting games in the esports scene already. However, my mind was completely changed at Evo Vegas 2026.

First, I had the opportunity to play the game, which I hadn’t had time to do since it came out in April 2026. This included two upcoming characters, The Immortal and Universa. It was surprisingly fun. It felt fluid, fast, bloody, and insanely satisfying.

I was then able to speak with Lead Combat Designer “Bau” Bautista and Game Director Dave Hall. And they had such a refreshing plan for the esports scene that I now not only believe in the game, but want Invincible VS to be the next big fighting game title.

The biggest titles in the FGC often share a massive issue: a disconnection to the community itself. While most gamers don’t expect developers to communicate openly and candidly with them (though devs have become better), it’s extremely important in the fighting game scene particularly.

And you’ve seen the consequences. Tekken 8 almost died, its esports scene decimated, when developers released Season 2. And then refused to really fix it at the time. 2XKO didn’t bother to truly understand the FGC and instead attempted to go mainstream, resulting in mass layoffs and a questionable future in the scene.

But the Invincible VS team is going at the development process quite differently. The same team also worked on Killer Instinct in 2013, and realized that the community is a huge part of the process back then.

Said Bau: “As much as we know about combat, fighting games are such a community… There’s so much involved. Getting perspective, feedback, and working with players and the community as a whole [is so important].

“They’re so knowledgeable. It would be silly not to pay attention and leverage that as much as possible.”

They are taking the same approach for Invincible VS. Hall told me that the community has been very active and there’s an ongoing feedback loop with the players. If gamers notice a bug, the team will announce an incoming hot patch. By being so involved with the community, the dev team knows exactly what’s going on in the game and how and when to adjust things.

This explains why the gameplay is so intoxicating. It was created for the fighting game scene by fighting game enthusiasts. The team is made up of passionate fighting game players who listen to the passionate fighting game players within the community. Their input matters. Their ideas are implemented.

The result? A game that stands out amongst all the newcomers in the FGC. There are so many tag combat games coming out, but Invincible stands out for its brutality (“We love exploding people,” Hall told me), its fast-paced, high-action gameplay, quick movement, and active tag team system. The open-ended combo system is also a game-changer.

While playing the game, I felt like I could catch on immediately. The combos were easy to pull off and insanely satisfying. There are not a ton of inputs required. The matches felt fast and tactical, like you were constantly making important choices and doing really fun s***.

You have to pay attention. It’s engaging.

While the barrier of entry is quite low, there are so many layers to uncover as you grind. There is a lot of depth here. And that’s thanks to the team’s willingness to really pay attention to the playerbase.

“You can literally press the button and do a bad*** combo if you do it enough times. Have fun. Press any button you want. It’s gonna work,” Hall said. “As you get better, you can figure out how to reduce meter and all those fun things. When do I tag? When do I throw these extra gameplay elements in there? It starts to add onto itself.

“Even the top-level players [at the Evo tourney], you’ll see people doing stuff we didn’t even know they’re gonna do.”

“It’s a brand new fighting game franchise,” Bau said. “We’re not beholden to anything in the past. We’re trying to make decisions and choices that work for us and our game. We’re trying to stay true to everything.”

This focus on community spills into the esports plans for Invincible VS. Rather than hoping for a massive mainstream scene full of sponsors and revenue (won’t mention any names), the team wants to focus on grassroots tournaments.

Soon, they will start supporting local tourneys. They believe that it’s at these locals where community can truly grow. It’s how the dev team themselves were brought up and they want to bring that magic back to the FGC.

“The camaraderie of being next to someone, that’s so important in a fighting game,” said Hall. “Playing online is important, but being together, cheering, doing hype stuff… That’s exciting.”

Bau added that locals are where it all begins. It’s where you build connections. Playing online, you can feel a bit detached. It’s not as satisfying. There are more players, sure, but it’s not the same. He noted: “You don’t get that talking trash after a match. Locals is where that came from.”

Before the pandemic, when the dev team was working on Invincible VS, they would get together and play all kinds of fighting games. Street Fighter, Soul Calibur, tons of Super Smash Bros. Melee. Hell yeah. There would be six to eight of them, rotating seats.

“There was lots of fun talking. We’ll call it talking,” Hall joked.

That trash talk is truly an important part of the fighting game scene. That saltiness. That realness. It’s great that the FGC is growing. We need more players. But we also need those locals. Those authentic moments. That feeling of camaraderie with a niche group that others just don’t get. The Invincible VS team gets it.

When asked about upcoming DLC, the dev team didn’t seem to really know what was happening. When were they coming out? How many? Someone came in and told me: Season 2 is coming in October 2026 with two characters, then Season 3 will add two more in December 2026.

That’s definitely cool. But it’s clear the dev team is focused elsewhere. They care more about the gameplay itself, the experience it brings for the players, the possibility of locals.

The new characters coming will push boundaries and introduce new mechanics. That’s something they were able to do once they had a strong foundation. Universa can drain the enemy’s boost meter, and The Immortal can come back from the dead. These are things that will require a lot of community feedback, and devs will be keeping a close eye on gameplay in the wild.

The new characters are cool and all. But I’ll be waiting to hear more about those tourneys.