Umbral Core

Umbral Core is a 2.5D fighting game set in a world of dark high fantasy. 

We gathered a lot of inspiration from titles such as Street Fighter, Guilty Gear and King of Fighters. After developing our original mechanics, we decided to bring it all together to create our own fighting game.

As great fans of lore-deep works, we designed a rich narrative world imbued with dark gothic vibes and themes inspired by the Souls series, Castlevania and Berserk.

Warning: Prototype

At the moment, the only availbale game character is Byron. As the online depends on Steamworks, here the offline-only build is playable. More features coming depending on funding.  

You can contribute to the development of the game on our Patreon page .

You can follow us and the game on our Website, Discord, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.

We are avid fighting game enthusiasts, but also dark fantasy addicts. Whilst dark themes are very appreciated in other genres and media, they haven't been explored too much in modern fighting games. Therefore, we had no doubts on the direction to take when discussing about the setting we wished for our game. 

Another aspect that we really wanted to push is narrative. Fighting games are arcade by nature. Despite that, we are designing a deep narrative world that aims at creating an engaging single-player experience for our players.

Gameplay-wise, we felt the need of blending together the rationality of Street Fighter and the fast pace of Guilty Gear, with an engaging flow that alternates spacing and explosiveness. We also wanted to achieve a deep combat system that aims at rewarding resource management and individual playstyles, allowing for creativity and expressiveness.

We strive to offer advanced technical features and customization options. Umbral Core includes rollback netcode for a seamless online experience, uncapped FPS for smooth visuals, and additional features such as in-game frame data, visible hitboxes, custom online input delay, ultrawide support and more.

The world is broken. A fragmented shadow of what it once was. The blackened haze of the Miasma lingering; spreading slowly but surely. Amid this foul air resting within a den of ruin, lies an artifact known by many names, as ancient as the Elder Days themselves; the Umbral Core. For some an omen of ruin; a pagan relic, best left deep beneath the earth. For others, a call to glory; no… destiny. 

In a time such as this, in a land veiled by uncertainty and doubt, what better moment for a prophesied ‘hero’ to find it, and continue its destructive cycle.

Character concepts and combat designs are constantly being improved, so characters might change the way they look and play by the time the game will launch. For instance, Gragor and Nir are currently going through a design update to better fit the art direction of the game. 

We’ve played and loved genre classics like Street Fighter, Guilty Gear, King of Fighters, and more. Umbral Core's combat design draws inspiration from some of the features we enjoyed the most, while also building in our own original mechanics. The battle system has been designed to be appealing for players across all skill levels. 

Here's an overview on the most relevant gameplay features:

• 4-button layout: L-Light, M-Medium, H-Heavy and U-Unique.
• Unique actions: the U button gives access to character-specific mechanics and attacks.
• Combos: auto-combos are a handy tool to get started, simply done by pressing the same button repeatedly. Manual combos can be done through chains of growing strength and links which require precise timing.
• Power: main resource, spent for EX specials, Burst and Annihilation Impacts. EX specials are enhanced versions of the regular EX specials, Burst is a versatile energy explosion that can be used as combo extender or to get out of the opponent's pressure, and Annihilation Impacts are powerful Super moves.
• Fury: gained by attacking, spent for Fury Cancels and Fury Install. Fury Cancels require 1 Fury meter and allow for special-special cancels. Fury Install requires 2 Fury meters and it's a power-up which grants offensive buffs for its duration.
• Control: gained by defending, spent for Control Counters and Control Install. Control Counters require 1 Control meter and allow for parries. Control Install requires 2 Control meters and it's a power-up which grants defensive buffs for its duration.
• Doom Impact: a comeback mechanic that can only be used when below 30% health to turn the tides of a tough battle.

Check out this in-depth guide and our tutorial series if you'd like to know more about how to play Umbral Core.

Umbral Core presents many quality-of-life features that aim at enhacing the game experience and customize it as much as possible. Here's an overview on the most relevant ones:

• Rollback netcode: the best network solution for fighting games. We've implemented a GGPO-based netcode to make online matches as smooth as possible. You also have the option to manually set the desired online input delay.
• Uncapped FPS: Umbral Core features uncapped rendering FPS. This means that frame data and combat system will behave just like regular fighting games, but the game flow will be much smoother.
• Ultra-wide support: enjoy the stages at their best when playing on Ultra-wide screens.
• Keep player symmetry: a customization option which doesn't affect gameplay. It allows to choose the combat stance you like the most between the classic 2D mirrored one and the 3D symmetrical one.
• VFX skins: each palette has its own set of VFX colors that you will be able to freely mix and match.
• In-game frame data: detailed frame data including startup, active, recovery and advantage frames.
• Visible hitboxes: clearly see all hitboxes, hurtboxes and pushboxes to analyze ranges and interactions in detail.