UNDEFEATED: Genesis Team Builds Hero Open World Almost Entirely in UE5
The studio's claim that all 13 team members are UE5 users, allowing them to build tools and handle cutscenes entirely within the engine, represents a development approach that could reduce iteration time and reliance on external software for small teams.
Reporting from 1 sources: Automaton.
Indie-us Games, a studio specializing in Unreal Engine, is developing UNDEFEATED: Genesis, a prequel to the hero action game UNDEFEATED. The game was playable in a new demo at BitSummit PUNCH from May 22 to 24. Director Yuma Shinohara and producer Daigo Hyodo, who worked on the original as students, reunited at Indie-us Games to build a larger project. The core team has grown from three students to 13 developers, with about 60 names expected in the credits including outsourced work. The team uses UE5 for nearly everything, including cutscene dialogue, tool creation, and animation, relying on Maya and Blender only for modeling and texture tools. The demo features flight and destruction mechanics, with a stamina gauge that recharges by destroying red and blue stones. Combat uses only the right-hand controller buttons to accommodate less skilled players. The game is set on the planet Voltisia, where protagonist Albert Hartley gains superpowers and fights mutants. UNDEFEATED: Genesis is scheduled for release on PS5 and PC in early 2027, after a delay from 2026.
Director Yuma Shinohara previously worked at Tango Gameworks for about a year, contributing level design and game design to "Hi-Fi RUSH" and receiving a special thanks credit. Producer Daigo Hyodo joined Indie-us Games first, then suggested to company president Masahiko Nakamura that they bring Shinohara in to make a sequel to the student project. The three have known each other for over a decade, with Nakamura serving as a mentor to both since their time at Vantan Game Academy.
The project received funding through Epic MegaGrants, Epic Games' developer support program. The team grew incrementally: about five people for the first year, then seven for two years, and now 13. Outsourcing covers enemy and character models, with the final credits expected to include roughly 60 names.
Shinohara said the previous game could not destroy buildings due to technical limits and conceptual questions about whether a superhero should destroy everything. For the prequel, the team built a world where "destruction is praised" - civilization on Voltisia has collapsed and reconstruction is underway, so destroying buildings and giving the materials to residents makes them happy. Environmental effects like water ripples when flying over water were also impossible during the student project.
Hyodo said the team can "make almost anything within UE alone." Cutscene characters and dialogue are handled entirely inside UE without Excel. "Since all 13 team members can use UE, there's no need to use tools other than UE," he said. "This also speeds up iteration, as data input, confirmation, and bug checking are all done within UE."
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.