What’s up everyone! It’s been a minute but we’re back with another Dev Diary highlighting the first two Fighters in the Invincible VS Year 1 Pass – Universa and The Immortal! Check out more on the highly anticipated roster additions below!
Who are Universa and The Immortal?
Universa is the Chosen of her people, tasked to travel the stars in search of energy to save her dying world. She is the only one who can wield the Staff of Leadership, which bestows her with immense power, but only when she is holding it, and allows her to both absorb and fire massive bursts of energy. Universa has come to Earth with the sole purpose of draining the planet of all its energy resources.
The Immortal’s origin is a true mystery, even to himself. Ancient warrior, knight, crusader... Over thousands of years, he has lived as possibly many historical figures and is currently the superhero leader of the Guardians of the Globe. He’s gruff, no-nonsense, and unrelentingly aggressive, but also hides an immense amount of grief, trauma, and loss. As the only survivor of the original Guardians of the Globe massacre by the hands of Omni-Man, he is distrustful of mostly everyone except Cecil and Dupli-Kate. While he has similar powers to a Viltrumite, he’s not as strong as them, but that never stops him from putting up a fight.
Design and Gameplay
Universa
Universa is a balanced, technical Fighter who gets more powerful as her Boost Meter increases. She also has the ability to siphon Boost energy from her opponents. Her unique combos and ultra-powerful boosted Specials make her an incredibly formidable force. Here’s more from Hope on the Quarter Up Design team about Universa’s unique mechanics.
“Universa doesn't have many appearances in the comic run of Invincible, and fans of the animation only just got a see a bit of her at the beginning of Season 4, but she has a striking design and clearly defined powers that made her a delight to bring to life in Invincible VS!
We definitely wanted to incorporate her power to drain and store energy in some way, and so naturally we looked at manipulating the Boost and Super gauges. After consideration, we decided it'd be most impactful to allow her to manipulate the Boost gauge, since it is a requirement for powerful system mechanics. We then wanted to give her a "Boost hungry" feeling, which led to the creation of Max Boost specials.
Naturally, when a character has greater access to system mechanics and can deny those same mechanics from their opponent, that can quickly skew the relationship between risk and reward out of balance and create unsatisfying game states. With that in mind, we were careful to give her specific moves and situations where she can siphon the opponent's Boost or generate more Boost of her own. We wanted to give her an "On and off" playstyle that felt satisfying to navigate.
Universa is a surprisingly balanced character despite her unique mechanics, with a spread of offensive, neutral, and defensive tools. I think she'll be a great pick for anyone that wants a wide range of options.
My favorite move is her "Entropy" super, which absorbs projectiles and converts them into Boost gauge. It's great for getting through some assists, or for dealing with characters that mainly use projectiles like Ella Mental or Cecil!”
The Immortal
The Immortal is an excellent Striker with dynamic pressure and closing ability. He has no problem charging forward and pummeling opponents without worry, unleashing combos and then using his revive feature to return to a match even more angry and powerful. I caught up with Lead Combat Designer Bau to get more info about The Immortal in Invincible VS.
“The Immortal is a very prominent character in the series, as well as the roles that he takes throughout history as well. Unfortunately for him, his most prominent contributions throughout the series involve him putting his name to the test.
As with the rest of our roster, the first step in creating The Immortal’s move set, was to dig through all of his appearances throughout the IP and identify key elements for us to capitalize on. Fortunately, he has many lifetimes worth of experience with combat and war in general, so we were able to apply a lot of that in his kit. The Immortal is a brawler at his core, and he has a wide variety of combat skills that he showcases throughout the show. We expressed that aspect by giving him a very dynamic and explosive move set. He has access to several moves which allow him to cover distance and angles very rapidly, keeping his opponents on their toes, and overwhelming them with pressure.
Some of the more involved technical challenges that we faced while working on The Immortal were pretty interesting, he has an Install Super which a temporary boost of speed while also allowing him to perform more expansive combos (also unlocks his charged Heavy attacks as well). As with all install type supers, it was a challenge to figure out how far to push the bonuses, costs and duration for the move to ensure that it’s impactful. In addition, his primary theme comes in his name, so figuring out how we were going to include his Revive mechanic (without it bringing up PTSD from similar mechanics was a pretty tricky task). Both issues, along with many other concerns, were solved through lots of iteration and rigorous testing.
His archetypes are Primary- Striker, Secondary – Dynamic Pressure. He is able to approach the rapidly opponent from different angles and can keep up the pressure with a variety of charged moves and rapid-fire attacks. He doesn’t have the range of other rush down characters, but he excels at closing the gap (especially when using his dash) and then overwhelming the opponent.
His Revive mechanic requires the user to have 3 bars of super available when he’s defeated, which allows him to revive with a small amount of health but also in his berserk state. Keep in mind that this can only be triggered once per match and does not work during sudden death. Also, he has several attacks which can be charged for added effect, allowing him to perform air stalls, re-stands (standing charged med), opening up new combo routes, and in general letting him hit that much harder. He also has one of the best end of round, walk offs ever.”
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Our two newest Fighters are set to shake up the meta when they arrive in Invincible VS tomorrow. Get ready to bring (and steal) the energy with Universa, and let nothing stop you (even death) from victory with The Immortal!
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