We’re thrilled to announce that FINAL FURY is part of Steam Next Fest. If you’ve been following our progress in previous blogs you’ll know that the team has been on quite the journey of discovery over the past year to find and tap into the essence of combat.

Now it’s your turn to discover the fruits of their labors firsthand. So what are you waiting for? Head over to our store page and download the demo!


It wouldn’t be much of a festival without some fun things to do now would it?

We’re pumped to announce all the awesome FINAL FURY activities that are taking place during Steam Next Fest!

Whether you’re competing in our Double Elimination Tournament, climbing the ranks in the Leaderboard Chase, or just hanging out in the community, there’s something for every player.

And yes, there are some cool prizes up for grabs!

It’s all going down on Discord so head there for all the details but here’s a summary:

[discord.gg]
📅 15 October 2024 - 10:00 CET / 00:00 PDT - Leaderboard Starts
📅 26 October 2024 - 18:00 CET / 09:00 PDT - Leaderboard Ends

Want to focus more on consistent grinding? Our Leaderboard Chase is here! It’s all about the combination of matches played and win ratio, so the more you fight—and win—the higher you’ll climb.


📅 18 October - 19:00 CET / 10:00 PDT - Tournament registration closes
📅 19 October - 10:00 CET / 00:00 PDT - Tournament begins
📅 19 & 26 October - 22:00 CET / 13:00 PDT - Saturday Sessions
📅 26 October - 22:00 CET / 13:00 PDT - Tournament winners announced!

Our tournament will follow a double elimination format, so even if you take a loss, you’ve still got a shot at the prize! And guess what? You can self-organize your matches at your convenience.

Signing up is easy - just add your details to this form. We’ll then draw the bracket randomly and post it so you know who you’re up against first.

Head over to Discord for the full rules and how to report your inevitable victories!


📅 26 October - 22:00 CET / 13:00 PDT - Pub Quiz

To wrap it all up, we’re hosting a Pub Quiz on October 26 to test your FINAL FURY knowledge, fighting game trivia, and gaming smarts!

Expect a fun mix of questions about FINAL FURY characters, mechanics, and VR facts, alongside more general gaming and fighting game trivia. It’s a great way to celebrate the event and win some final prizes.


Alright, fighters, listen to your coaches!

We wanna get you ready for the big fight—so it’s a good thing you got us in your corner! The devs recently sparred for an internal tournament and we collected some of the best tips from our own FINAL FURY champs.

Here we go, in no particular order

• It’s fun to punch as fast as you can, but don’t get too carried away! Punches won’t stop an opponent from grabbing you if your reflexes aren’t fast enough to counter them..
  
• Always be blocking! Don’t forget to put your arms up—block those incoming shots.
  
• Stay light on your feet! Always be ready to dash to dodge a grab and counter grab.

• Ranged attacks cancel each other out: Tempest’s Arctic Blasts and Glitch’s Tac-Bombs, for example.

• When in doubt, space it out. This one takes a little bit of practice (and some patience), but keep in mind the range of your opponent’s attacks before you go in swinging. Oftentimes, the fighter who plays the neutral game the best will come out on top.
  
• Classic fighting game tactics work! Try to bait an attack (like a throw or an Arctic Blast) from your opponent, then punish them as soon as they whiff!
  
• Be unpredictable! Don’t fall into a pattern; that’s a one-way ticket to getting yourself KO’d.

• Arctic Blast like a pro! Form your hands to one side like you’ve got a snowball, then push out like you’re launching the attack!
  
• Try to be blocking constantly so it becomes much more comfortable to do the Artic Blast by moving your hands from the blocking position to the side of your neck.
  
• Artic Blast is more of a defensive ability than an offensive one, since Tempest's strong point is maintaining a constant attack.

• Glitch has weaker punches, but a long reach. Use them to keep your opponent at bay.
  
• Glitch’s Tac-Bombs don’t hurt you! Use the trigger zone as a kind of shield. You can get closer to opponents and damage them if they go in for a grab.
  
• Glitch’s Tac-Bombs can be shot BEHIND your opponent. Apply enough offensive pressure, and you might be able to back them into the bomb’s trigger zones without them realizing it

It’s not often you hear these words and it’s followed by good news. Yet, that’s exactly what happened after our FINAL FURY public playtest late last year. We had stages built out, animations made, and systems in place. We even got positive feedback from players! Still, it hit us like a long range haymaker from Glitch—we needed to rethink the combat controls.

In a VR fighting game. THAT isn’t a decision you make lightly when you’re so far along, but it was the absolute right call. We believe so much in the potential for FINAL FURY, from the dev team trenches to the studio heads of Kluge Interactive, we went quiet for a few months and got to work.


We chronicled a bit of this in a recent blog post[finalfuryvr.com], but today let’s dig deeper into what that involves: Going back to prototyping and drastically re-evaluating something so core to FINAL FURY’s design. Then, we’ve got a fun surprise for all you VR fighting fans (a new demo!)…but we’ll get to that in a minute.


FINAL FURY’s original control scheme relied heavily on reflexes, requiring players to simultaneously juggle multiple inputs. In a game like Synth Riders, having complex gestures involving 3D floating elements works great as you feel a musical flow. In a fighting game, though, it pulls you out of the moment-to-moment tactics against an opponent.

So, how do you go about finding the right way to play? To avoid going down endless rabbit holes, we stuck to a “two-month rule” while exploring new control schemes: Have a clear goal for success or failure and two months to explore an idea.

“Respecting the timebox at all costs was hard but essential—it was the only way to answer key questions without getting lost in endless iterations,” says Game Design Director, Seb Samson.

Think about this re-prototyping process as if you’re mapping out a dungeon. The point is to not go in circles or miss out on items before finding the exit—with the “treasure” here being how we manage the cognitive load. That is, the game’s mechanics should be intuitive with complexity as an optional advanced layer when you apply strategy.

Here’s what we found, step-by-step, along the way.


Nothing was sacred–we went right back to the most basic core mechanics to ensure each aspect stood on its own. One mechanic at a time, we tweaked everything until it felt right.

Then we began testing basic combos.

1. Punching vs. Punching: Exploring timing differences makes an impact on how you play. Slower, more deliberate punches felt more impactful and satisfying than faster, weaker ones. Even now, we still explore the range between physically sound and instant punches. For instance, we removed a "fly back" animation during the final implementation post-prototype.
   
2. 
   
3. Moving and Punching: Adding movement introduced a new layer of complexity and fun. Here, dodging was tweaked for more fluidity, allowing players to smoothly evade incoming blows and set themselves up for a counterattack. [Here’s a pro-tip: Hold down the movement stick and if you see an incoming move, tap the dodge button at the right moment to set yourself up to respond.]
   
4. 
   
5. Blocking and Punching: Refining defensive mechanics around blocking and punching came next. In the first implementation of FINAL FURY, you had to hit symbols to block—you were relying on reflexes. The blocking needed to be more flexible and strategic, allowing for different hand positions and a more dynamic defense. Most importantly, clashes between player attacks and enemy blocks needed to feel fair and balanced.  

We made a point of building each combination of new controls as a self-sustained gameplay. It may sound head-slappingly obvious, but this became the turning point. We formed a solid foundation. Next comes the balancing act between complexity and accessibility, implementing strategic input that doesn't overwhelm the player.


Everyone, deep down, wants to perform a Street Fighter-esque “HADOUKEN!” gesture—not through some half-circle joystick flip, but by moving your hands into position and feeling like it’s launching from your palms. We’re aiming for something to feel powerful, natural, and easy to pull off in FINAL FURY.

The catch: Gesture recognition needs fine-tuning to prevent conflicts with similar moves. If a player gears up to launch a distance attack, then plans to dash in, grapple, and punch, each requires bespoke movements. Playtests revealed that players often rest their arms between key moments, which could unintentionally trigger certain powers.

Take the grab. Originally, it was possible to perform punches from the sides, but that could conflict with grabs (and vice-versa). To solve this, we made grabs and punches more restricted, but mutually exclusive. We isolated the side zones for grabs—after all, both hands are used when you grapple a foe. This combination of creating zones and conditions made grabs more responsive. Better still, it opened the door to "anticipation" phases, creating opportunities for the opponent to react and also create feints to fake out players.

We similarly added proximity-based triggers for power moves. It made the system feel more natural and instinctive, reducing the need for complex gesture chains. The development of new animations for specific characters helped make these gestures feel distinct and meaningful in every case.


Up to this point, it was just a small group spitballing and redefining the combat in FINAL FURY, according to Samson. The real test began as we shared our prototypes with the larger FINAL FURY team—and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive.

Everyone appreciated the new direction and felt more connected to the action. We also gained invaluable insights. One great example: People play differently—standing or sitting—and we need to account for that. This highlighted the importance of more flexible controls.

Also, not all gestures are created equal. How you instinctively form a ranged attack can vary whether you grew up playing Street Fighter or watching something like Dragonball Z. [HINT: In [i]FINAL FURY[/i], form your hands together to one side of your body to form Tempest’s Arctic Blast attack.]

Making adjustments in gesture detection and how throwing punches feel is an ongoing process even now. The learnings we hope to gain as we continue development doesn’t stop here. In fact, this is as good a segue as any for some exciting news we have coming!


We took the time to go back and redesign core combat components and bring it to where we are now. The results of that hard work will soon be in your hands. A demo is coming during Steam Next Fest 2024.

So where do you come in? Glad you asked! Starting Oct 14 YOU get to experience everything that we’ve been talking about here. We have a demo going up and you are invited to join us![http//url%3Dhttps] You will get to play as two of the FINAL FURY fighters – Glitch and Tempest – each with unique skill sets and play styles. Spar offline against AI or challenge a buddy online, we want to put you into the intergalactic arena and hear what you think!

Then, join our Discord and tell us what works — or what could use more work — as we continue building this VR fighting game of the future.

We couldn’t have come this far without the love and support of our larger community and we appreciate everything you bring to the fight even now, in these early rounds.

[discord.gg]
As a celebration of our involvement in Steam Next Fest we want to find out who in the community is the king or queen of the intergalactic ring. To that end, we’re running a tournament to answer that question.

There are more details on our Discord [discord.gg]but if you want to get involved sign-up to participate by filling in this form[forms.gle].