Skybound Comics Starts In-House Game Studio, Announces Invincible Beat ‘Em Up
Founded by Robert Kirkman, Skybound is the comic company behind top titles like The Walking Dead, the Energon Universe (a GI Joe and Transformers crossover series), and Invincible. Now, the company has announced it’s started an in-house video game studio, Quarter Up, and an Invincible beat ‘em up is its first title.
Invincible follows teenager Mark Grayson as he discovers his dad is the superhero Omni-Man and that he, too, has powers. However, a dark secret in his father’s past upends everything and Mark takes on the mantle of Invincible to try and make things right. The comic has already been turned into licensed video game content (in Fortnite), and a critically-acclaimed animated series.
“Why make just one major announcement when you can make two?! Skybound is launching our first major Invincible video game: Invincible VS, and announcing the debut of our first in-house game studio, Quarter Up,” Skybound posted on LinkedIn on June 11, 2025.
“The studio is led by a world-class team of over 40 industry veterans, including key developers behind Double Helix’s Killer Instinct. Quarter Up’s mission is simple: redefine the fighting game genre with cinematic presentation, deep mechanics, and pure fan passion.”
Beat Everyone to a Pulp
The Invincible series first hit comic book shelves in January 2003 and ended its run in February 2018. Across 144 issues, the story started as a straightforward “teenager discovers he has powers/his dad is world’s most powerful hero” before taking multiple dark and gory turns, that will not be spoiled here for the uninitiated.
Suffice to say, the titular character gets multiple opportunities to live up to his name through ferocious battles, some of which took up entire issues of the comic. Therefore, it makes perfect sense that the characters and world of Invincible should be transplanted into a beat ‘em up video game.
“Featuring an original story from the team behind the hit animated series, Invincible VS blends jaw-dropping combat with rich narrative, crafted entirely inside Skybound,” the company added in its LinkedIn post. “It’s a brutal 3v3 tag fighter that drops players into the bloodiest battles in the universe.”
Quarter Up
Although it doesn’t have an online presence yet, there are some details regarding Quarter Up’s team available. Most notably, Skybound ran a successful crowdfunding campaign that ended in April 2024. It asked for $50,000 to develop an Invincible beat ‘em up and help set up a game studio. It raised $687,102 in total, which was on top of $18 million raised through previous crowdfunding efforts.
On the page for this campaign, Skybound highlighted some of the people and studios involved: “We have a talented team of more than 30 experienced employees from the likes of Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts (EA), Epic Games, and more as the driving force behind our in-house studio.”
“The studio will be headed by newly appointed Head of Games Publishing, Chris Paulson (formerly of Activision Blizzard), and EVP of Games Production, Patrick Gilmore (formerly of Amazon Games).”
The number of staff has since been bumped up to over 40, but is still made from veterans of big name companies and studios including Riot Games, Naughty Dog, and Double Helix Games. On the crowdfunding page, Skybound said that it wanted to give fans of Invincible a chance to get in on the ground floor of not just a major Invincible game, but a AAA one with direct ties to the source material.
In a recent interview with Variety, the Invincible VS executive producer Mike Willette, who previously worked on cult favorite beat ‘em up Killer Instinct, said: “From a developer perspective, it’s just amazing that you have access to all these resources.”
“I’ve worked on projects before where you’re begging, borrowing, stealing just to find, ‘What is this? Can I get access to this?’ Here, it’s not a problem. We have decades’ worth of stuff to go back through comic-wise and access to the show and the creative team.”
Invincible Versus Everyone
Full Invincible VS gameplay details have yet to be revealed, including the full roster of playable characters, but previews have already shown the main tag team element as players can switch between three characters during a fight. A few special moves have also been highlighted, including the ability to launch an opponent quite literally into space, thereby changing the location of the battle.
Invincible VS was officially revealed during the Xbox Games Showcase on June 8, and is set for a 2026 release on Xbox Series X, as well as on PC and PS5.
