Invincible VS has arrived on Steam, but its early momentum is far from flawless. The new 3v3 tag-team fighting game from Skybound Games launched on April 30 with a $49.99 price tag, and while critics have been fairly positive so far, player reactions on Steam are painting a much rougher picture.
Developed by Quarter Up, a newly formed in-house Skybound studio led by veterans from the Killer Instinct development scene, Invincible VS had plenty working in its favor before release. Hype had been building for months, boosted by renewed interest in the franchise while the show’s latest season is airing. With a recognizable brand and a team that knows competitive fighters, expectations were understandably high.
On the review side, the game is starting in a respectable place. It currently sits at 78 on OpenCritic, which is a solid result for an adaptation entering a crowded fighting game market. Many reviewers have highlighted the combat depth and movement as major strengths, suggesting that the fundamentals are there for a good long-term competitive experience.
Where the praise starts to taper off is content and onboarding. Multiple reviews have pointed to a tutorial that doesn’t do much beyond explaining basic button inputs, leaving newer players without the deeper guidance modern fighters often provide. Single-player content has also been a sticking point, and the story mode length is getting the most attention: at roughly 90 minutes, it’s been a tough sell for many players at a $50 launch price.
Steam user reviews are where Invincible VS is taking the biggest hit. The game has already crossed 800 reviews across multiple languages, and the overall rating has landed in “Mixed” territory. A significant portion of negative feedback appears tied to launch-day issues, including missing pre-order bonuses and Deluxe Edition items not showing up as expected. For many players, that kind of rollout instantly damages trust, especially when they paid extra for content that should have been available immediately.
Monetization is another early flashpoint. Players are criticizing the pricing of cosmetics right out of the gate, with some individual skins costing close to $10. Even more controversial: bundled pricing that can push the cost of several skins into the same range as the full base game. For a premium-priced fighting game, that kind of day-one cosmetic strategy is already being labeled by parts of the community as overly aggressive.
Some of the harshest reviews may not be permanent. A number of players have openly stated their negative posts are meant as protest reviews and could change once missing bonuses and Deluxe content are properly delivered. Still, not all complaints are tied to item delivery or store pricing.
There are broader concerns about overall presentation. Some players and critics say the in-game character models don’t match the quality implied by the game’s pre-rendered cutscenes, which can make the package feel less “full retail” than expected. Another frequently mentioned drawback is the lack of an online training mode, a feature many fighting game fans consider standard in 2026, especially for titles that want to build a competitive online community.
Even with the turbulence, Invincible VS doesn’t appear to be a lost cause. Most impressions agree that the fighting mechanics themselves have real potential, and that’s usually the hardest part to get right. But between a thin story mode, missing baseline features, launch-day entitlement problems, and cosmetic pricing that’s already upsetting players, Skybound has work to do if it wants the conversation around Invincible VS to shift in a more positive direction on Steam.
If the studio moves quickly—fixing pre-order and Deluxe entitlements, addressing feature gaps, and rethinking how cosmetics are priced—Invincible VS still has a chance to recover. Right now, though, it’s a launch defined as much by frustration as it is by promise.
