Latest news with #KillerInstinct
Hindustan Times
22-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Actor Siddhant Karnick opens about knee replacement surgery: Still healing
Actor Siddhant Karnick, who shared glimpses of his recovery from a knee replacement surgery online, held off on speaking publicly until he was, quite literally, back on his feet. 'I was waiting for the right time to talk about the ordeal I went through in the past few months — getting operated on for a titanium disc in my left knee,' he shares, 'I'd rather people see me as someone who's bounced back, not struggling to recover.' Actor Siddhant Karnick (Instagram) The 42-year-old admits the aftermath tested his resilience: 'After the operation, I was mostly lying down, watching the days go by. The real challenge began three to four months later, when depression crept in; staying motivated became really difficult.' The experience wasn't just about physical healing but emotional growth. 'It turned me more empathetic. It was a journey of healing inside out.' Recalling the day of the injury, he says it began like any other. 'I was prepping for a role in late September and training was part of my routine. During a casual game of badminton, I lost my balance and fell — the knee took the worst hit.' Despite the accident, Siddhant was committed to his work. 'The first thing I needed to figure out was how not to lose the film I was already part of.' After discussions with the director of Killer Instinct, a solution emerged. 'The doctors advised a waiting period of four to six weeks before surgery. So, we reworked the character into a physically disabled man on crutches, which allowed me to complete the film while recovering.' He did have to let go of an international musical drama, unable to dance or perform physically demanding scenes post-surgery. 'For now, my focus is on healing,' he says. 'I keep reminding myself — I'm on a titanium knee now.' On a positive note, he has wrapped up his second French short film, tentatively titled The Diggers, which will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival later this year.
Yahoo
17-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Invincible VS might be hyperviolent, but the devs want to salve the sting of getting combo'd to death: 'We want you to be an active participant, even when you're getting hit'
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. If you've played Marvel vs Capcom, you may be aware of the touch of death: that most dreaded of fighting game combos where a single hit-confirm can take you from full health to the grave. It's an edge case, but an emblem of one of the big frustrations any arcade fighter novice has dealt with—getting hit in any game with a robust combo system means you'll spend a lot of time waiting and watching. Mike Willette, once lead producer of 2013's stellar Killer Instinct reboot and now executive producer on Invincible VS, said the game is angled to balance out the breakneck pace of your average tag fighter with some tweaks that favor accessibility. "Within our combo structure, there's opportunities to actually break out. We don't want you to be passive, we want you to be an active participant, even when you're getting hit … similar to KI, as you're doing attacks and specials and supers, it starts building up combo meter," he said. "When it gets all the way full, your opponent will drop out of your combo." If you're on the receiving end, you can call on one of your assist characters (you select a team of three for any given match) to cancel out a combo if you're getting pummeled, but it'll cost a fair bit of meter. If you're doing the pummeling, that might be a buzzkill—but if you catch your opponent low on resources, you can spend some of your own to press the advantage. Willette told me you can extend those combos by spending some meter, using a super, or tagging in an assist, the latter of which can be used to tie together huge combos that involve your entire team of three. Your opponent can counter-attack for free to escape as you transition characters, but if they mistime it, you'll get to bash them for even longer as they open themselves up. If all that sounds like a lot of execution to worry about, Willette said that a basic combo is easy enough to spit out across the roster once you know your buttons. "You have a magic chain system where you can go light, medium, to heavy attack. At the end of that, you can go into a special … you can do crouching heavy at the end, which is your launcher, and then you can pursue your opponent up into the air," he said. You can repeat that magic chain once airborne, so as long as you keep your combo meter in check, you can get some pretty lengthy combos strung together without learning what the hell a frame trap is. Willette said the goal was to get players learning the basics and how to properly tag in their assists without much friction. New players "aren't gonna do as much damage" by using the magic chain repeatedly, but "they're still gonna feel good … it doesn't take away from the strategic depth." Weak and reliable auto-combos are nothing new for fighting games, but they've helped games like Blazblue and Dragon Ball FighterZ feel more pick-up-and-play than their old-school counterparts. Frankly, there's a long history of fighters experimenting with novel ideas to cut down on newbie frustration, and Invincible VS seems intent on cribbing the best ones and ignoring any that bring down the skill ceiling. After all, a good fighting game can't make a bad player good, but it can make playing badly more fun. Given that the game hopes to attract both FGC obsessives and comic book loremasters who may have never played a fighter before, it seems like a bright choice. Willette explained the ideal case scenario for new players: "For me, it's really about taking you and training you up on the tools and the vocabulary of Invincible VS so you feel comfortable playing in casuals and eventually in online ranked play. We want you to become an online warrior. That's where you're going to have the most fun, where you're gonna meet people, and where you're gonna see what fighting games have to offer." Of course, it's possible you're just here for the digital equivalent of bashing your Invincible action figures into each other. There's lots you could spot in the reveal trailer to that end, from the return of familiar voice talent like JK Simmons to the fact that costumes get shredded and bloodstained as fights progress, but Willette mentioned a certain visual flourish that speaks to my soul as a Mortal Kombat apologist: overkills. As he put it, if you defeat an enemy with a super or certain special moves, that move "will actually kill,' with the character exploding into gore or otherwise getting obliterated. Why do they call this guy Invincible again? Regardless, it speaks to the spectacle on offer—and the enduring popularity of Robert Kirkman's gargantuan comic run—that Invincible VS stands out even days after Marvel popped in with a slick tag fighter of its own. Here's hoping they're both great, and we can all agree never to go this long without spandex-based fighting games this long for a good while. 2025 games: This year's upcoming releasesBest PC games: Our all-time favoritesFree PC games: Freebie festBest FPS games: Finest gunplayBest RPGs: Grand adventuresBest co-op games: Better together
Digital Trends
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Digital Trends
Invincible Vs is like Mortal Kombat mixed with Killer Instinct
When I heard rumblings that a game based on Invincible was in the works, I had a fairly clear vision of what they would look like. I figure it would be some kind of superhero action-adventure game set somewhere in the comic book universe. I was absolutely not expecting a tag team brawler, but that's what we're getting with Invincible Vs. I'm very much okay with that after playing a few rounds for myself following the Xbox Games Showcase this past weekend. Invincible Vs aims to be a very approachable fighting game that can be as casual or hardcore as you want. Recommended Videos The idea here is simple: It's your basic 2D fighting game where players choose teams of three heroes that they can tag between on the fly. If Marvel vs. Capcom comes to mind when I say that, that's partially accurate, but there's a lot more to it than that. In fact, everything I'm about to describe will probably make a lot more sense to you when I tell you that the new studio developing it is largely made up of the devs who made Killer Instinct. The core combat has me juggling attacks and special on my four face buttons. I can perform grabs and counters by pressing different buttons together, keeping all the basics centralized to one place. I could pick up the basics of fighting very quickly, as the team built its combo system to be fairly approachable. For instance, if I just hammer my light attack, I'll perform an instant special of sorts. You don't have to memorize long combo strings to pull off something that looks cool. The complexity builds from there. On the right side of my controller, I can dash with the bumper. If I hop into the air and hold the right trigger, I can perform an even longer dash that more or less lets me fly for a moment. That movement system adds some superheroic action to the mix, as there's huge potential for sky high aerial combos and dodging here. The left side of the controller is all about weapons in partners. Holding the left trigger will tag a friend in, but pressing the bumper will send someone in for a mid-combo attack, not dissimilar to the way Mortal Kombat 1 and its Kameos work. Switching characters is important, because a fighter will essentially crash out if their combo meter gets too high. Tagging in a friend resets it, allowing them to create much longer chains. That might leave you worried that Invincible Vs is the kind of fighting game where you can get stuck in a never-ending juggle, but that's not the case. That's where the studio's Killer Instinct experience really shows. Blocking and countering are very important, as a big attack can be canceled out with the right timing. There's still some skill involved there, though, as players can get tricky with their attack timings, even hitting intentional fake outs that can cause an opponent to block too early and leave them vulnerable. There's a delicate balance between offense and defense here that leads to a lot of momentum shifts in fast-paced fights. And those brawls are brutal as hell too. Keeping in the spirit of the comic, Invincible Vs approaches Mortal Kombat levels of hyper violence. When a player hits a character that's at low health with a special attack that would kill them, it essentially turns into a fatality. I watched characters like Bulletproof get straight up beheaded by the likes of Atom Eve. Even the level I was playing on didn't make it out unscathed, as it deteriorated more and more with each round. This isn't a fighting game about friendly sparing between competitive friends; it's about people who really want to kill one another. After playing a few rounds and getting the hang of its tricks, I'm eager to get back in and see how much deeper it goes. It still feels a little more on the casual side to me, and I wonder how high its competitive ceiling will be in the long run, but I get the sense that there's more to the project. For instance, it seems like it will feature some form of story mode that features an original narrative set in the comic universe. If it can deliver that on top of strong brawling that calls both Mortal Kombat and Killer Instinct to mind, Skybound Games may just have a blood-soaked hit on its hands. Invincible Vs launches in 2026 for Xbox Series X/S and PC.
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Invincible' Video Game Set as Skybound Launches First In-House Game Studio, Quarter Up
'Invincible' studio Skybound Entertainment has launched its first-ever in-house video game studio, Quarter Up. The new division's first game is the recently announced 3v3 tag fighting game 'Invincible VS,' a title set in the world of Amazon Prime Video's popular adult animated superhero series created based on the comics penned by Skybound's Robert Kirkman. More from Variety Adult Animation, Anime's Rising Influence Lead WIA's 2025 Annecy World Summit Lineup (EXCLUSIVE) Skybound Acquires Digital Talent Firm Nine Four Entertainment Skybound Entertainment Appoints Skarphéðinn Guðmundsson as CEO of Iceland's Sagafilm (EXCLUSIVE) 'Invincible VS' is described as 'a brutal tournament-quality 3v3 tag fighting game that lets players become a superhero in the bloodiest fight in the universe.' The game will feature fan-favorite 'Invincible' superheroes Mark Grayson (Invincible), Thula, Atom Eve, Bulletproof and more characters in an original single-player story from the creative team behind Amazon's 'Invincible' TV series. The game, which was first teased during Xbox Games Showcase on Sunday ahead of Skybound's Quarter Up reveal Monday, is slated to launch in 2026. 'I think about our team as a group of fighting-game fans making games for the fighting-game community, and we're trying to create a game that matches what people want,' Skybound Games chief Chris Paulson told Variety. 'And it doesn't have to be this huge game that costs $100, it can be something more focused. And so we don't really think about double A or triple A or whatever, we think about making a game for an audience, and we're playing the game with the people that are going to be fans.' Headquartered in Los Angeles, Quarter Up is made up of more than 40 developers who are alums from gaming studios including Activision Blizzard, Amazon Game Studios, Double Helix Games, Riot Games, Naughty Dog, Netflix and more. The team's mission is to 'redefine the fighting game genre by being at the center of combat, presentation and passion,' but they're keeping quiet on what other projects they're planning beyond 'Invincible VS.' 'We're hyper focused on this game right now,' 'Invincible VS' executive producer Mike Willette, who previously worked on Double Helix Games' 2013 title 'Killer Instinct,' told Variety. 'We want this game to amaze people. We want them to fall in love with the characters and the world of 'Invincible.' There's so much rich lore and badass-ness that we just want people to get their chance to play with us.' But as they move forward making other games for Skybound, Willette noted how Quarter Up being an in-house gaming studio has already simplified his usual dev struggles. 'From a developer perspective, it's just amazing that you have access to all these resources,' he said. '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. So for us, couldn't ask for anything better on the dev side.' Best of Variety 25 Hollywood Legends Who Deserve an Honorary Oscar New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week Emmy Predictions: Animated Program — Can Netflix Score Big With 'Arcane,' 'Devil May Cry' and the Final Season of 'Big Mouth?'
The Verge
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Verge
Nintendo Switch Online gets another Rare N64 game.
Andrew Liszewski The console version of the Killer Instinct 2 arcade game, called Killer Instinct Gold when it launched on the N64 in 1996, has been added to the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack. The arcade version of the game used pre-rendered clips for backgrounds of various stages, but the N64 version replaced them with fully 3D environments that moved more realistically with the game's camera. The fighters themselves, however, remained 2D animations.
