Iron Galaxy In my book, he’s a developer with a lot of good stuff. The studio has worked on large contracts for nearly 15 years and is also known for producing its own projects from time to time, all of which carry the hallmark of its own brand of action.You may know them in later seasons killer instinct, diving kickNow Rumble.
Venturing into the battle royale genre — albeit with guns and firefights being swapped out for an entirely different gun show, full of muscle and wrestling — this is the studio’s first major in-house IP release in a while. To understand the origins of the game, and how the team at Iron Galaxy plans to differentiate its games in a saturated market, and its overall hopes for the title, I sat down with co-CEO Chelsea Blasko to talk all things Rumbleverse.
It has been widely reported that Blasco was the source of the original Wrestling Battle Royale idea, stemming from their desire to recreate the fun of classic wrestling and the goofy stars of the macho era.
“I just wanted something fun. Who doesn’t remember wrestling with their siblings on the living room floor?” Blasco exclaimed. “I have two sisters and a brother – we wrestled all the time – I wrestled people in college! It brings joy and stupidity. Sure, you’re working out some aggression, but it’s just pleasure. “
It’s that fringe after-school cartoon-style wrestling, colorful characters and quirky hijinx, that find expression in the Rumbleverse world and characters. “Our goal was definitely to make it fun and easy to use. The art style was a bit cartoony — colorful. We went back to the characters and things were a bit squished, a bit exaggerated. It wasn’t realistic, it was meant to be fun, to make people Throwing back to the early cartoon days and the kind of fun that existed back then. Things like bouncing on cars and scurrying around the side of buildings all played silly.”
So with all this emphasis on wrestling, why isn’t it as a fighting game battle royale? Well, this seems to be a conscious choice done to remove any perceived barriers to entry. “I think fighting games can be intimidating for people. I like them because I like to jump in and beat someone’s ass, but they can be very technical and require a lot of practice to become a skilled player. We Wanted to make the title easier to understand, to bring some depth, but also something you could pick up without having to memorize too many combinations, or something like that.
“So that’s why we said ‘Battle Royale’. We also added this verticality, which in turn brought another layer of strategy to the game. The idea was — even if we had this, there were really a lot of them Deep combat system – anyone can pick up the Rumbleverse and have fun.”
This desire for accessibility — or, more accurately, inclusivity — extends to one of the most sought-after tools in the field service toolkit: customization through cosmetics. Rumbleverse’s costumes are pieced together, which means you can match each slot together or mix and match to create your own unique wrestler.
“We really wanted the title to be as inclusive as possible and allow players to make a character that is very special to them! Plus, having tons of customization points allows you to tell the difference between players at a glance as you run around The difference. One of the things I’m really proud of is that we have 14 different character customization slots that I don’t think I’ve seen in other games. Even everyone seems to be wearing Popular cat heads, but there are also many ways to differentiate players in games.”
Of course, customization is important, but for your character, the future of the Rumbleverse will come in more form than cool. With the upcoming launch, future seasons are being planned.
“We definitely have a lot of ideas for Season 1.5 and Season 2 where you can interact with players and have a co-op experience, whether it’s through duos or quads. We’ll continue to offer a lot of customization. We’ll be introducing Different combat locations, new environments, new interactive things, and some other ideas we’ll be adding as well.”
All in all, this will be a major stepping stone for Iron Galaxy, bringing lessons learned from previous projectiles into this dynamic twist on the BR genre. Blasko explained, “I see everything we do at Iron Galaxy as different stepping stones. We’ve had the privilege of being involved in several different fighting games. Starting with Street Fighter 3: Online, we’ve made a lot of it, Killer Instinct Seasons 2 and 3 are starting to showcase our creativity. We’ve learned a lot from everyone we work with and from every project we’re working on.”
But can it stand out from the competition? The Rumbleverse seems to be the battle royale genre — and the wider live service market — that seems unable to adapt to the growing number of good games, just as top wrestlers of the past struggled to fit into their spandex bodysuits.
Despite the odds, Blasco seems uncertain but still has high hopes. “You know what, I don’t know! I don’t know! It’s really up to the fans. Hopefully we create something that’s fun for them and can be used by a lot of people. Have fun with the colors injected into the game. We’re praying that people will love their game once it’s released and it’s been well received! So far during playtesting, people seem to really like it. We hope to stick with it Go on, we’re very proud of that.”
“We hope that with RumbleVerse, people can see that Iron Galaxy can make great 3A games, and it will lead us to create more big games in the future. We still enjoy working with our partners – port work and technology firefighting — but we hope that part of our business will continue to create and develop our own IP.”
As a final light-hearted question, I had to ask fellow co-CEO Adam Boyes whether legendary fried chicken made him the best chef at Iron Galaxy. As it turns out, the studio is packed with talented chefs, launching an onslaught on the studio founder.
Chelsea Blasko told me: “I haven’t had the pleasure of eating everyone’s food at Iron Galaxy. I would say Alex Boyes. He was on a cooking show in Canada where he could knock down 20 eggs in a row. But we have a lot of great cooks – we were doing a cooking show before we released the Iron Galaxy Cookbook last year and a guy named Micheal Metts made a great dish in a video. It all stems from our Hispanic origin /LATANX ERG (Employee Resource Group) put together their own recipes.”
While working from home during quarantine, we’ve been figuring out ways to keep each other happy. Enjoy a glimpse of some of our kitchens from the past year! pic.twitter.com/QUjvYcrpb8
— Iron Galaxy Studios (@IronGalaxy) September 2, 2021
“I have to say, we now have a former chief of staff — Kleistos Friedman. He was chief for many years in Chicago. If I don’t mention them, I’m a failure. We used to host the Chili Peppers Cooking Contest – Chad Simpson makes the best cookies, of course. In addition to the recipe, we made a wok with our logo and distributed it to all staff.”
Rumbleverse is starting Coming to PlayStation, Xbox and PC on August 11.
