Video Game / Rumbleverse

Rumbleverse was a Battle Royale Game developed by Iron Galaxy Studios and published by Epic Games. You compete in a competition in Grapital City against up to 39 other Rumblers, the last one standing wins. Though unlike your typical Battle Royale game, you play as superhuman wrestlers that can easily scale skyscrapers and land elbow drops, piledrivers, and several other wrestling moves from them, making it play more like a Fighting Game with an emphasis on freedom of movement.

On January 31, 2023, it was announced that the game would permanently go offline on February 28 of that same year just eight months after its official launch.

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Rumbleverse contains examples of the following tropes:

• 1-Up: If your Superstar meter is full while your health reaches 0, you will make a Comeback, getting back up with a sliver of your health to have another fighting chance. This contrasts the Superstar mode's Vicious grapple, which deals major damage and will very often K.O. an opponent if it connects.
• Acrofatic: Since a rumbler's body type doesn't change how they play even the more round and heavyset rumblers are capable of pulling off the same flexible and dynamic moves the same way every other rumbler can.
• Action Initiative: There's an attack priority system that dictates moves that can overpower others.
  • The Super Vicious attack goes through everything, though there is a slight start-up that can be interrupted.
  • Power attacks like dropkicks, uppercuts, and wake-up backfists are second only to super attacks in attack priority.
  • The rest goes like so; weapon attacks —> special strikes —> strikes —> special vicious —> vicious
  • players that simultaneously try to attack one another with moves of the same priority level will simply clash, dealing only stamina damage to each other.
• Advancing Wall of Doom: Much like other Battle Royale Games there is a giant ring that shrinks over the course of a match. Unlike other examples, it functions as a wresting ring and getting caught out of it doesn't damage rumblers but gives them 10 seconds to get back in the ring or get disqualified.
• Bizarre Alien Biology: The characters of this game are not human; they are a species called "Rumblers." Every Rumbler has the same density regardless of their mass, and four flesh pockets that they can use to store items.
• Boring, but Practical: Of all the weapons rumblers can use you wouldn't expect much from the wooden plank, but its ability to stun opponents with its unblockable vicious attack leaves them wide open for a follow-up combo or super vicious grab.
• Brawn Hilda: Rumblers with the 'Crusher' body type are huge women that are the tallest and bulkiest of all of the rumblers, having a similarly huge upper body like 'Strikers' but with more proportionate legs making them One Head Taller.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: Rumblers are capable of superhuman feats like scaling skyscrapers with their bare hands and dropping from them with only Amusing Injuries.
• Deadly Game: Averted. The Rumble is repeatedly mentioned to simply be a sport of friendly competition, with the losers only suffering a Non-Lethal K.O.. Skip Leggerday sometimes comments on the player coming back for another round if they're defeated.
• Digital Piracy Is Evil: One of Skip's potential pre-round lines has him warn the audience that anybody caught illegally recording the match will be shot out of a cannon.
• Falling Damage: Played With. While Rumblers jumping off extremely tall skyscrapers themselves gets them humorously flattened with stamina loss, they can soon recover. A rumbler getting thrown off a building by another rumbler on the other hand will have them take damage on impact, taking more damage the higher they've fallen.
• Fighting Game: In contrast to most other Battle Royale games which tend to be first or third-person shooters, the general gameplay for Rumbleverse is this.
• Foe-Tossing Charge: Season 2 introduces the Rush series of moves that is a running shoulder charge with high priority, sending opponents flying away on contact. Holding the attack button lets rumblers continue charging so long as they have the stamina to do so, but depleting it will have them stop to catch their breath leaving them wide open.
• Friendly Enemy: Skip asserts that the Rumblers are very friendly with each other even if the game consists of them beating each other up, sometimes saying they even plan to get brunch after the match is over.
• Goofy Suit: The final unlockable costume for the Season 1 Battle Pass lets one don the Squaaawky Squaaats suit, who is the giant chicken mascot for the fast food chain.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: One of the fan letters is from a Littlest Cancer Patient who did this out of excitement while watching one of the player's matches.
  Little Mikey Mitchell: I sat right up in my hospital bed and yelled gee-golly-gosh! Please don't tell my mom I swore.
• Groin Attack: The wake-up vicious attack is a mean punch to the crotch that'll stun the victim briefly for a follow-up attack. The Diamond Crusher also starts with a kick to the crotch.
• Human Aliens: Considering the game consists entirely of them, you'd be forgiven for thinking that Rumblers were just comically strong humans.
• Improbable Weapon User: Rumblers can grab a variety of items on the map to use as weapons, from the good old folding chair or baseball bat to trash cans, mail boxes and stop signs.
• Inexplicably Preserved Dungeon Meat: Squaaat's Chicken are the primary source of health recovery in this game, and they can usually be found in crates, but more rarely open dumpsters. They can also be acquired at Squaaats food trucks or restaurants, but they must still be picked up from the floor.
• Kick Them While They Are Down: The aerial attack and the charged Vicious slam can hit enemies while knocked down on the ground.
• Limited Move Arsenal: Only up to 2 Special moves can be learned at any time, and they must be replaced should you want to use other ones.
• Masked Luchador: Some of the many customization options allows players to outfit their rumblers like luchadors.
• Megaton Punch: The Punchline family of moves is a simple lunging punch that deals high damage, especially the blue-rarity Atomic Punchline. Landing the Atomic Punchline in particular lets loose a very loud gunshot sound effect that can be heard from afar.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: Despite almost everything being themed around body building rumblers come in several shapes and sizes and a skinny rumbler is just as capable of fighting as a much more muscular one. Justified, as every Rumbler has the same density.
• Non-Lethal K.O.: Being K.O'ed ingame doesn't endanger a Rumbler's life, and Skip Leggerday even states rather often that a K.O just means they're out for the game. They're even fine if they get K.O'ed via falling into the ocean, despite their density making them unable to float.
• Poison Mushroom: Eating chicken at full hinders you rather than helps, giving you the "meat sweats" and being susceptible to double damage for a limited time.
• Power-Up Food: In three varieties! Chicken restores HP, energy drinks provide increased stamina recovery for a brief time, and protein powders provide buffs to your HP, stamina, and attack power.
• Punny Name: The Announcer's name 'Skip Leggerday' is a play on the popular workout phrase "never skip leg day".
• Ring Out:
  • Getting thrown into the deep ocean surrounding Grapital City will immediately result in this thanks to rumblers having Super Drowning Skills, making certain moves very deadly when fighting near the water.
  • Being outside the ring starts a countdown. If you don't return to the ring before it expires, you'll be immediately disqualified.
• Shout-Out: The vicious attack with a chair is named Chairging Star. Some dumpster bins also have 'Mighty trash' spray painted on them.
  • The Crusher series of moves pay homage to the three iterations of the Cutter, the Ace Crusher, the Diamond Cutter, and the Stone Cold Stunner. The Diamond Crusher in particular adds the iconic kick setup, and even deals 316 base damage.
    • The gems associates with each level also reference the Weapon bosses from Final Fantasy.
  • Not only do Uppercuts resemble the Shoryuken, they also function similarly as well, being reversal attacks with considerably higher priority than other special moves. The Super Vicious Attack also takes inspiration from the original command grab, the Spinning Piledriver. The base damage it does is 720, referencing the joystick input for the Final Atomic Buster.
  • The Cyclone series of moves is also a clear reference to the Double Lariat.
  • The Starfish weapons let you perform a rolling attack identical to Blanka’s iconic move, with the Vicious variant arcing like the Backstep Roll.
  • The Spinning Piledriver can also be learned from manuals, which refer to the move as the Izuna Drop.
  • The Rekt Shot is, in essence, the Blitz Ace/Jecht Shot.
  • One of the perks, which grants increased Superstar refill for landing normal attacks, is called "Wooooo"
  • The Karategi outfit comes with an orange and blue variation. KO’d opponents also assume Yamcha’s infamous death pose. Season 2 even introduces a set of emotes that allows 4 rumblers to strike a coordinated Ass-Kicking Pose similar to the iconic Ginyu Force pose.
  • The extremely rare Keybat weapon is a near exact replica of Sora’s Keyblade moveset, with a glide, a whirling launcher, and even Strike Raid.
  • The Edge series of Vicious attacks are themed after knives, paying homage to the late Razor Ramon and his Razor’s Edge crucifix powerbomb.
• Simple, yet Awesome: While the big special moves like Crusher and Tackle deal a lot of damage and look stylish, the humble Punchline can be a deadly ally in a fight. The fast startup, long reach, and high damage make it an excellent punish option against aggressive foes, and it can be used out of shield and while on your back for a high risk/reward attack. It's also rather safe if used properly.
• Sprint Meter: The stamina gauge is used to sprint, climb, and perform special attacks. It can also be depleted by taking damage, and taking a hit from an opponent that fully depletes your stamina gauge will leave you stunned.
• Super Drowning Skills: Rumblers are apparently so dense that they simply sink in deep water.

• Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: Like a typical Fighting Game, blocking stops strike attacks, striking interrupts grappling attacks, and grappling attacks go through blocking. It becomes a bit more complex when special moves, weapons, and super attacks come to play however.
• Thanking the Viewer: On the day the servers were permanently shut down in February 2023, the game's various official social media accounts released a video where Skip Leggerday thanks all the Rumblers (And by extension the player base) for participating in the Rumble followed by him announcing that he'll be attending a farewell party held by ABS before getting body slammed one last time which ends up giving him some similarly final Amusing Injuries.
• Theme Naming: There's tons of places and things in Grapital city themed around wrestling and working out.
  • Grapital City is a play on the word Grappler.
  • Skip Leggerday hosts the events on the ABS channel
• Top-Heavy Guy: Rumblers with the 'Striker' body type are men with ridiculously huge and muscular upper bodies but with tiny legs. Those with the 'Crusher' body type are the female equivalent but they have relatively larger legs.
• Wrestler in All of Us: All the Rumblers by default attack with mongolian chops, suplexes, irish whips, elbow drops, dropkicks, and spinning piledrivers. They can learn up to 2 more moves by reading books.