Kabam’s Disney Mirrorverse mobile action RPG debuts on June 23

Kabam and Disney revealed fresh details for Disney Mirrorverse, a team-based mobile action role-playing game releasing on June 23.

The game will debut on iOS and Android, and pre-registration begins today. Kabam showed off battle-ready versions of iconic characters and settings, built in collaboration with Disney and Pixar Games.

In Disney Mirrorverse, players enter a new, divergent universe separate from the settings of the original Disney and Pixar films. In these high-stakes worlds, dark and light magic influence the lands, evolving iconic Disney and Pixar characters into Mirrorverse Guardians who are ready for combat and poised to fight against the Fractured, a malevolent threat whose goal is to shatter both realities.

“Mirrorverse is one of the pinnacles of us putting down a strategy and then finding an exact partner who brings such an amazing ability for building incredible games, with focused action-RPG mechanics, and really delivering on that,” said Luigi Priore, vice president for Disney and Pixar Games at Disney Parks, Experiences, and Products, in an interview with GamesBeat. “We worked on creating a whole new universe of characters that we could take and amplify them and evolve them for specifically this action mobile RPG.”

Players will unite a team of 3D-animated Guardians and take full control in real-time, action-oriented gameplay. As players progress through the game, they’ll collect a large roster of characters and assemble a team of three to take into battle.

Each character has unique battle abilities, including an armored-up Sulley, the ultimate personal-battle companion Baymax, the vengeful draconic mage Maleficent, and many more Guardians who stand ready to defend against those seeking to conquer the Mirrorverse.

Disney Mirrorverse features a divergent Disney universe and storyline that can stray from canon as players square off against the Fractured.

David Le, senior vice president of marketing and player experience at Kabam, said in an interview with GamesBeat that the company wanted to use the kind of expertise it built with action RPGs with Marvel: Contest of Champions and put a new spin on the genre.

“The most exciting opportunity that really came up was this idea of creating a new divergent universe where we take evolved and amplified versions of Disney and Pixar characters, and immerse them in this brand new universe where they’re able to face off against a malevolent Fractured enemy force,” Le said. “It’s been an interesting challenge taking Disney and Pixar characters that people know and putting them into an environment like Marvel: Contest of Champions. We’ve really been reimagining them in a way that’s much more powerfully amplified and battle ready.”

How the gameplay works

You can enter detailed new worlds filled with 3D Disney and Pixar characters that have been evolved to fight matches in this universe. You can uncover the backstories of these Guardians and discover their surprising special abilities equipped for battle. The game will slow down when players trigger the big abilities of the characters, and then you’ll see animations of the consequences of those big moves.

Players will control a team of Guardians and experience real-time action combat while controlling Guardians’ individual actions, team strategy, and special attacks, or select “auto play” to watch the cinematic action play out automatically.

Players can go on quests to unlock narratives and battle Fractured enemies to obtain rewards and restore the worlds and characters of the Mirrorverse that have been corrupted by fractured magic. A collision of two stars creates a divergent universe.

Fans can engage in an original storyline in story mode, discovering the story of the Mirrorverse and the Ages of Isolation, Discovery, and the Fractured. Updated every few months, new chapters to the main story quest or side stories featuring select heroes and villains will be constantly added for players to battle through and compete.

Players can participate in limited-time event quests that tie into real-world Disney and Pixar-inspired content and events, and offer unique characters, awards, and progression items during a specific timeframe.

Playears can also join an alliance and work together to complete event milestones and earn great rank-based rewards by competing against other alliances. Players climb through progressively harder encounters while using a themed team of Guardians to earn progression items.

Players can also compete against other players and alliances worldwide in ever-changing dungeons to earn progression items and other unique awards. Content will be updated monthly.

Making the game

The trick will be in making sure that the game doesn’t cannibalize the many other Marvel or Disney or Netmarble games already out there.

Priore said the work began two years ago as Kabam showed what it wanted to do with its action RPG genre on mobile. It wanted to do real-time action in an arena. And because it’s a Mirrorverse, the characters don’t have to follow traditional canon, as they’re developing new canon. As an example, Sully from Monsters Inc. is like a tank with armor and the ability to launch heavy attacks in battle. Belle from Beauty and the Beast has an ability to fight as well, using the power of her magical rose to heal other characters, Priore said.

“You can understand this is an action RPG but there is so much depth to how you’re building the team and who you’re bringing into combat,” Priore said.

Le noted that Belle hasn’t been involved in combat in this way, and for sure she was never intended to be fighting in a squad-based action game.

“From a canon perspective, we were always trying to figure out was how you create a divergent universe where it makes sense that we have these people coming from classic Disney, modern Disney Pixar, and you’re able to come to the table with your collection of Guardians,” Le said.

Most of the pre-production was done before the pandemic, and the team went into full production during COVID-19. That wasn’t easy, but the team had a lot of time to get the work done.

“I give the development team specifically a lot of credit,” Le said. “There are a lot of people who are super passionate about this project. As we’ve kind of gone through our beta phase, there has been a lot of focus on how we improve player engagement and the first-time user experience and the combat. The team really delivered.”

Kabam’s games have generated hundreds of millions of downloads including Marvel Contest of Champions, Transformers: Forged to Fight, Shop Titans, and Fast & Furious 6: The Game.

Founded in 2006, Kabam has studios and offices in Vancouver, Montreal, Charlottetown, San Francisco and Austin, Texas. Kabam is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Netmarble.