Ever since they first clambered into shops in 2010, Funko Pop figures have been an unavoidable part of pop culture fandom, lending their black-eyed large-headed charm to everything from Ms Marvel to Mr Bean. After a couple of minor smartphone releases it was inevitable they’d eventually make it into a major video game. But what could have been a lazy cash-in looks to be a lot more promising. Funko Fusion is the first title from Warrington-based studio 10:10, formed by Jon Burton and Arthur Parsons, the directors on most of the vastly successful Lego titles such as Lego Star Wars and Lego Harry Potter. Their aim is to bring the same energy and humour to the Funko universe.
Funko Fusion, then, is a classic cartoon-style action adventure, beholden to the Lego titles naturally, but also to PlayStation favourites Ratchet & Clank and Jak and Daxter. Players get to explore seven themed worlds based around Funko Pop figures and key licensor NBC Universal. As Parsons recalls: “I remember we got sent a spreadsheet, which listed everything that NBC Universal owns from back in the 1920s all the way to current day. And it was like, ‘wow, where do we start?’ That was the fun bit.”
They grabbed elements from about 20 favourites. One minute you’re playing as Nicholas Angel, solving crimes in Hot Fuzz, the next you’re Owen Grady battling rogue dinosaurs in Jurassic World. The levels can be taken on in any order, and characters and items can be carried between them; so if you want to explore the Back to the Future Universe as He-Man, you can. The visual style is a pleasingly brash, colourful rendering of the Funko aesthetic, the characters looking incredibly similar to the real figures and the worlds carrying their weird, off-kilter cartoon vibe. As characters get injured in battle, they become scuffed and dirty – a nice little Toy Story-style touch.
Unlike the Lego games, the target market is teen to adult which has allowed the team to be a little more mature with the humour and action. Alongside the main worlds, there are also mini-quests involving horror favourites such as Jaws, Child’s Play and The Thing – although the gore and violence are extremely lighthearted. As Parsons puts it, “even when the Walking Dead zombies throw their arms at you, it’s like a little cutesy plastic arm”.
Gameplay-wise, there is a mix of puzzle-solving and shooting, with objective-based tasks and lots of Easter eggs littering the landscape – in the Hot Fuzz world, you’ll find a store named Quint’s Tackle Shop, which of course leads to a Jaws adventure. As well as the single-player adventure, there’s a co-operative online mode, although no local split-screen like the Lego days. This was a conscious nod to the older age rating, and the fact that teens tend to play against friends rather than family. Each area has its own special items – in Hot Fuzz you can pick up a black light camera allowing you to analyse crime scenes, and you can take it into other worlds to see what you can find. There are also vinyl mould machines dotted about that let you generate weapons and other useful kit.
Obviously, the potential is there for a lengthy collaboration, but according to Parsons, there’s no grand, highly monetised vision for Funko Fusion. “So we are going to be looking at the metrics from the standpoint of, what are people enjoying, what are they playing?” he says. “More importantly do they want DLC? Do they want, I don’t know, a competitive multiplayer mode? We do have some plans – maybe we’ll add the odd IP here or there just to see if people engage with that. We’ve got to listen to people that are paying their hard-earned money.
“Right now we’re just making sure this game lands as well as it can. A lot of people don’t realise that we’re an independent, privately funded studio. We’re not the big faceless corporation or whatever, we’re just a load of people in Warrington who have had a real fun time.”