The next entry in Flashbulb Games’ Rubberverse has changed its name to correspond with its new focus. As of now,Rubber Royaleis being renamed toRubber Warriorsand will be the studio’s 2024 brawler title.
Rubber Warriorswill be the second installment in the Rubberverse, followingthe 2021 heist party gameRubber Bandits, and will continue the franchise’s focus on ragdoll physics-based gameplay, destructible environments, comedic overtones, and a distinctive visual style. But unlikeBandits,Rubber Warriorsis aiming for a more mature audience.
Rubber Warriors: Not Really a Royale
The name change was discussed by Flashbulb co-founder andRubber Warriorscreative director Mikkel Thorsted in a recent interview with Game Rant about the Rubberverse franchise and the history and ambitions of Flashbulb Games in general. He acknowledged somecomparison toFall Guys’ minute-to-minute gameplay, but emphasizedRubber Warriorsisn’t really a battle royale title at all.
Right now, the working title isRubber Warriors. We have gone a little bit back to some of the initial concepts of framing forRubber Royale… I don’t think we can classifyRubber Warriorsas a royale game. I think it was, to some extent, but I think we’re adding a lot to it by making what you can actually do in the game a lot more complex and a lot more interesting.
The fast rounds which drop 16 players down to a single winner can evoke similar feelings of somebattle royale games, butRubber Warriorsclassifies itself more as a brawler title. It also leans on more mature humor and a sense of brutality to its combat–players can rip off someone’s arm and beat them with it, for instance–to put some distance between itself and more family-friendly party game fare likeFall Guysor its own predecessorRubber Bandits.
WhereRubber Banditsis aparty gamethat has humor that is geared toward the whole family, the tone ofWarriorstakes more after the humor of franchises likeSouth Park, Thorsted explained. This more mature tone blends with the increased mechanical complexity found inRubber Warriors.
I think some of it inRubber Warriors’case was, honestly, in the beginning, I was like, “Okay, we do everything very close to howRubber Banditsis.” That is very much when we do these experiments, and we have prototypes of this brawlerFortnite-ish game look in theRubber Banditsuniverse. Then, it just felt wrong.
The December demo titledRubber Royale Holiday Prologuewas well-received by those who played it, but there seemed to be some confusion around the title. While this wasn’t the impetus for the name change, the smaller splash of the brawler title’s demo does make renaming the final product less confusing for potential players.
How Rubberverse Games Are Made
The name change is more closely related to the development process Thorsted follows, which he describes as passion-driven. He focuses more on gameplay mechanics first and develops the game’s narrative framing later in development. That’s the point of the process thatRubber Warriorshas entered now.Having the framing nailed down while developing mechanicsis something he couldn’t handle as a developer; instead, he focuses on developing through experimentation and iteration on an idea, adding the framing later in development.
Everybody has different approaches, but for me, it’s always been mechanics first where I can see some clear vision in how the game could feel and play. Then, secondly, it becomes asking what would fit well for this game. When I started thinking about that, it was pretty obvious for me that’s what we did with theRubber Royale–the whole framing, the whole idea, just for me, it didn’t feel right. I thinkWarriorsand adding the brutality and so on feels really, really good as it is right now, and it’s now that I’m certain we can say we’re heading in the right direction.
That refocus has putRubber Warriorson the proper path to release and helped Thorsted crystalize his vision for the game. Those iterations and experiments may have gone away from whatRubber Royalewas, but what the game is now is something he’s confident in.
We’ve been down many routes of what we wanted to do with the game, now it feels like we have all the parts to the puzzle. A lot of the gameplay, systems, and all of that is in place, so it’s getting ready to do the actual production, and we have all the right tools to do it. That’s where we are now.
Thorsted hopes to haveRubber Warriorsreleased by the end of 2024, and from there has sights set on further diversifying the Rubberverse gamesby innovating on what they’ve done thus far. This means adding more complexity and longer gameplay sessions, while keeping the physics and humor that’s been a core part of the Rubberverse.
