[STEAM] 'We Wanted It to Feel Like a Playable Episode' — Robert Kirman and the Developers of Invincible VS Talk About Its Mysterious Story Mode and Making Cecil Work in a Fighting Game

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. The no-nonsense director of the Global Defense Agency is a surprise addition to the roster. He lacks any superpowers, so it’s hard to imagine him lasting more than a blink of an eye against the likes of Omni-Man and co. But Invincible creator Robert Kirkman was adamant Cecil be in the game, and left it to the developers at Quarter Up to figure out how to make him work.

Their answer is to lean on all the cool gadgets we see Cecil use in Invincible, which in this 3v3 tag fighting game levels the playing field somewhat. But there’s more: Invincible VS has a sizeable Story Mode in which Cecil plays a crucial role. Kirkman and Quarter Up won’t say much about it, but they describe is as a “playable episode,” so expectations are high.

In this interview with IGN, Kirkman, Invincible VS executive producer Mike Willette, art director Dan Eder, and narrative director Mike Rogers, talk as much about Story Mode as they are allowed to right now, and delve deep into how Cecil actually works in the game. Read on to find out if Invincible VS is canon to the show, details on Cecil's kit, and much more.

IGN: It must have been an interesting challenge with Cecil. He doesn’t have any superpowers, but he’s smart and can teleport and uses a lot of weapons. So how did you go about making him work in a fighting game?

Mike Rogers: From a lore and narrative perspective, Cecil's always in control. We often see him as the man in the ear or the man watching the screen, but people forget that he's a trained agent. He knows how to get his hands dirty and he's got all the tech and all the money of the U.S. government behind him that can allow him to do that. There's just a lot of cool things that we've got in there that allow Cecil to be a really different character. We wanted him in there. There was no way we wanted to exclude him. And we saw opportunities like using his teleporter, like using Reanimen, like using The White Room, to get him in there in a unique way that people might not expect.

Mike Willette: From a gameplay perspective, you have all these different types of archetypes, and where Cecil really fits in, in a really unique fashion in our system, is manipulating space, almost like he manipulates people, right? So the ability to put out projectiles like his Sonic Mine, that will basically just hover in space and then detonate after a few seconds. So he can put hazards, put roadblocks, put almost like a bullet hell for the opponent to try to get through. And because of our active tag system, he connects one time, he can tag in one of his assists. And so he's got a lot of utility for just manipulating the screen, getting around it, pelting the opponent from afar, making it frustrating for them, and then putting him back into our combo system.

IGN: So is he a zoner, would you say?

Mike Willette: Yeah, absolutely. So his combo structure, while he does have auto combos like most of our characters, and the magic chain of light, mediums and heavies, he has a lot of utility for the mid and the long range. He can make people try to chase him down. He has a lot of boosted moves that can cause pop-up or hard knockdown. Or for his… we call it Shellhock, he goes down with a Flaxan weapon and he basically launches like a grenade, but when you boost it you can launch multiples. You can do it

while retreating and try to fill the screen and try to just set up roadblocks, so you can kind of like reset and then continue to pelt from afar.

So he can manipulate a lot more than other characters can, because he has to use these tools. He doesn't have an air dash. He doesn't have double jumps. He uses the teleportation a lot to make those old bones work.

IGN: Robert, I'd love to know what your input was on this. He’s not the obvious choice for a fighting game when you look at the characters in Invincible. I'm sure fans will love that he's in there. Was he a character you were keen to see realized in a fighting game particularly? How did it come to be that he was in the game?

Robert Kirkman: His presence in the game is something that's really exciting for me because it shows the versatility of what these guys are trying to accomplish with the game, by having characters that you wouldn't expect and working out how Cecil can be equally matched with all the other people that are coming into it.

It's really great the way they're pulling in story elements. There's a lot of character that is intact from the comics and the show that is clear in every frame of these characters. Cecil actually puts his hands in his pockets when he moves backwards, which to me was something that I thought was just absolutely brilliant. And it's just a really fun aspect of the character that's there visually as he's moving around.

There's definitely a wish list of characters that I wanted in the game. And Cecil was one where I thought it would be really cool and unexpected if he were to show up in the game. Never in a million years did I think they would be able to pull it off and pull it off this well.

I'm gonna tease too much… I'm going to get in trouble, I can't say anything! But I'm very excited about this game!

IGN: I wanted to ask you about the story and the story mode. I don't know if that's something that you can talk about at this stage, but it'd be great to get some input on the narrative side of things, because I do understand that you're going big on that.

Robert Kirkman: I've been working very closely with Mike Rogers, the narrative lead, and Helen Leigh, who's one of the key writers on the series. She wrote the Adam Eve special episode with me and has done a lot of great episodes for the show. What we're really trying to do is provide an in-game experience that is like watching an episode of the television show. It’s a really cool story that uses the characters in a really exciting and authentic way, and I think goes into some directions that people are really going to be surprised by. There's a lot of unexpected twists and turns.

Mike Rogers: We wanted it to feel like a playable episode. It's this standalone narrative. In the same vein that the Adam Eve special is like a special episode, this is a special episode, too. And just getting to work with Robert and Helen and really craft something that feels right for the Invincible universe, it's been a real treat.

IGN: Is this canon, or is it like a What If? sort of scenario? I know it's an original story, so it's not something we've seen before. But, you know the fans will wonder how it all ties in with everything. They always do. I mean, I do! So what do we actually have here?

Robert Kirkman: It definitely fits very neatly into the narrative of the show. There's a tremendous level of care going into making sure that the characters are authentic and that everything works. Internally, there's actually a window where we're like, ‘Yeah, could fit there.’ But, you know, we're not going to talk about that.

Mike Willlette: Just sit back and enjoy yourself!

IGN: You’ve got Cecil going up against Omni-Man, for example, which on the face of it would be impossible. But as designers of a fighting game, how do you balance everything where that can be a valid matchup, even though you would think that Omni-Man would essentially tear everyone to shreds?

Mike Willette: What's so awesome about just jumping right into this universe, there's so much deep lore and personality with these characters and things to pull from, from like all that comic resource. And then you have the show. And it's kind of the rule of cool, what makes this character and what's really fun for gameplay? And then merging these ideas together. And then you get to see what archetypes do they fit within or it's like, are they rushed down? Are they a grappler, are they strikers? Are they long range? You have this kind of triangle and then you're like, ‘Oh, do they fit more along these two aspects or these two?’

And then things just naturally start to fall in place, and especially within the meta that we've created of like, it's not just a single character, it's three characters that actually represent your kit. So you get to mix and match all these different things. I want to play pure keep away, or I want to have something that's a little bit more balanced where I do have a big bully who can push the corners and then I support that character with a bunch of ranged or mid-range characters.

So when it comes down to balance, it's really just seeing what's the essence of the character, what belongs in their kit, and then how it works within our omni tag system, how do characters play well with each other or support each other, whether it's through the assist systems and the different types of assists that they can have, or how they naturally tag into each other. You can play almost any character like a point character or have it dedicated for a very specific role. It's really play the way that you want. And again, we're just given this beautiful sandbox by Robert and company that's just like, God, we have so much great source material.

Dan Eder: I will say one of the challenges of using an established IP is that you have to find the middle ground between being authentic to the IP but also making a fighting game that's gonna work. If you're authentic to the quote unquote power levels of the show, then that wouldn't be a very satisfying experience because it just wouldn't be very balanced. And if you know anything about fighting games, it’s that balance is key. We do want to allow people to be able to play with their favorite character and not be completely demolished just because the other one is so OP.

So I think as long as you're authentic to the character and there's some sort of plausibility of, okay, that character would use those powers, right? Then I think a lot of it comes down to pure skill of whoever is playing that character. And that's how you stay true to the source material, but also just make it stand on its own. Because I think the reality is that not everyone is going to be intimately familiar with Invincible. We don't want to make this game just for the fans. We want to make this game for people who may not be aware of Invincible, and this would be their starting point. So then that wouldn't matter as much to them. ‘Hey, why is Omni-Man so…’

Mike Willette: We're gonna turn them into fans, Dan!

Dan Eder: Exactly. So I think there's a big opportunity to do our own thing, make the game stand on its own, without relying on the fandom, but also make it very pleasing for the fans. At the end of the day we're gonna have a lot of Easter eggs, we're gonna have a lot of small touches and character moments as much as we can. And I think it's gonna be an all around great experience.

Mike Rogers: And Cecil was a character where we got to think about this also. Every character has a round reset in between rounds of the fight where they fly at each other, their fists smash and like, okay, if Omni-Man's fist is smashing into Cecil's, that's not gonna end well for Cecil, but he's got these Reanimen and can jump in and do that for him. He's got the teleporter that can allow him to dash around, sort of in the way he has a conversation with Nolan at the end of Season 1. And we got to interpret that and bring those into like, how do they work in a fighting game? And I think it brought an extra level of authenticity to the character. And that challenge for a character like Cecil yields more specificity, which is great.

IGN: Did all you fighting game developers all over the world get together one day and decide 2026 was going to see the return of tag fighters?

Mike Willette: It's the most insane thing — and it's true — that all great minds think alike! Because we haven't seen a really awesome tag battle fighting game since like Dragon Ball Fighterz, and that's like, what? Eight years now. And then before that, the gold standard was Marvel vs. Capcom. So there was this huge void. And we all approached it differently. Our competitors are different from us. And that's actually a really good thing. And it's interesting, everyone has their own take, and we really like our take. We really like the universe that we get to play in, and we like the violence of it, the brutality of the stakes that are involved, and our unique style of combat and what it means to read someone — you read your opponent and be able to have large amounts of counterplay. Yeah, it's an exciting time. 2026 is crazy!

IGN: Why was a tag fighter right for you? And then 3v3?

Mike Willette: Obviously being a huge fan of the comics in the show, when I was asked like, ‘Hey, Mike, what game do you want to do?’ I'm like, ‘I want to do an Invincible tag battle fighting game.’ There's so many factions and teams that exist within the universe, whether it's like the Teen Team or The Guardians or The Lizard League or The Order, like there's just so many. And when you watch people fight, like yeah, there's solo fights, but there's also a lot of team fighting that takes place.

There's been this lack of team fighter games for such a long ******* of time. And then this IP had lots of strengths when it came to teams and team synergy, and I always thought about the ideas of like, what happens when these characters team up and do ***** together? Like when Eve and Mark fight together, how awesome is that? So we just wanted to play out those fantasies, and what better method than in a fighting game?

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on

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at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at *****@*****.tld.

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