The Funko Pop video game’s first trailer is a descent into pop culture madness
Funko Pop figures, the ubiquitous bobblehead collectibles that have obliterated plastic toy competition through their sheer volume, are getting their own video game. Funko fusion will bring together pop culture properties such as Jurassic world, Back to the future, The Umbrella Academy, The thing, Child’s play 2, Masters of the UniverseAnd Shaun of the dead in a unique experience early next year.
The first trailer for Funko fusion shows what a special prospect that is. Sitting alongside family-friendly fare like He-Man and Marty McFly, time travel back to 1985 is the chaotic carnage of dinosaurs eating Funko Pop humans and the shocking horror of Dr. Copper having both his arms amputated by John Carpenter’s Norris monster The thing. It’s a slightly darker take on the formula of toy-based games like TT Games’ licensed Lego titles or Disney Infinitybut what better vector to introduce kids to body horror?
The team behind it Funko fusion is 10:10 Games, founded by former TT Games people. Based on brief snippets of gameplay seen in the trailer, it looks like Funko fans can expect an experience akin to efforts like Lego Star Wars and Lego Harry Potter – recreations of familiar movie moments in a much wackier toy form. . Players will “fight enemies, explore vast environments and solve intriguing puzzles,” Funko and Universal Games said in a press release. Online multiplayer allows up to four players to immerse themselves in pop culture mashups.
“It’s incredibly exciting to be able to show everyone what the team here at 10:10 Games has been up to,” said Arthur Parsons, 10:10 Games’ design director and co-founder, in a press release. “Harnessing the incredible properties entrusted to us by our partners at Universal Games and Digital Platforms, bringing them together in a gaming experience that is incredibly fun, surprising, authentic and celebrates fandom like never before, all experienced through a Funko lens.”
Developers promise “dozens of playable characters in Funko Pop! form of popular NBCUniversal stories” — including Universal’s series of famous monsters — among other unannounced properties.
Funko fusion is scheduled for release sometime in 2024 on PC and unspecified consoles. Given the wide reach of the Funko brand, you can expect it to be on every console.
Funko has flirted with video games before in the form of Gears popa mobile real-time strategy game based on Microsoft’s Gears of War franchise. Gears pop was released in 2019 and discontinued in 2021. Funko also publishes table games, many of which are (unsurprisingly) based on popular franchises, including Fast and Furious, The Goonies, ET the alienJurassic World and The warriors.
Funko itself is a 25 year old company that started making Big Boy couches and bobbleheads based on Austin Powers and breakfast cereal mascots. Over the decades, the company has licensed hundreds of characters from movies, TV, comic books, anime, and video games, and has become a staple of pop culture outlets such as Hot Topic and GameStop. An animated film based on the Funko Pop brand was announced in 2019 by Warner Bros and Funko.