Game: Knock Off: The Battle for Imagination
Developer: Mecanimal Games (Dominican Republic)
Publisher: Bit Bot
Genre: 2D Fighting Game
Release: 2027
Platforms: PC (Steam) · PlayStation 5 · Xbox Series X|S
Netcode: Rollback
Soundtrack: Celldweller & Scandroid
🥊 Bit Bot is publishing Knock Off: The Battle for Imagination, a 2D fighting game where action figures come to life. Developed by Mecanimal Games, it’s heading to PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S in 2027 — with rollback netcode, a full arcade mode, and a soundtrack by Celldweller and Scandroid.
Johnny’s toys were never name-brand, but they were always legendary. When Maximus — Johnny’s first official brand-name action figure — arrives and shakes up the arena, Johnny’s beloved bootleg toys must prove that off-brand doesn’t mean outmatched.
Dumping your toys on the floor and building a whole universe in your head — as a fighting game.
Knock Off: The Battle for Imagination is a 2D toy-box fighting game set in a world built from ’80s and ’90s playtime mayhem. Plastic warriors inspired by the era’s action figures — and, crucially, the knock-offs those figures inspired — come to life and settle their differences in the arena.
It’s developed by Mecanimal Games with development and publishing support from Bit Bot, and it’s targeting a 2027 release across PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.
The premise is doing something genuinely clever. Rather than celebrating the brand-name toys everyone remembers, Knock Off centres the bootlegs — the slightly-wrong figures with off-model proportions and invented lore that filled the shelves of every discount store. That’s a much more interesting angle than straightforward nostalgia, and it gives the roster a built-in underdog story.
Rollback Netcode, Confirmed Up Front
🌐 The Spec That Matters Most
Knock Off is launching with rollback netcode, alongside customisable matchmaking and global ranking systems. For a fighting game, this is the single most important technical commitment there is — rollback is the difference between an online mode people actually use and one that empties out within a month.
Announcing it this early, three years ahead of release, signals that online play is a design priority rather than a feature bolted on at the end.
The wider online offering covers casual matches and tournament play, which suggests Bit Bot are building for a competitive community rather than treating multiplayer as a checkbox. Local multiplayer is included too, which matters for a game whose entire aesthetic is about playing with friends on the floor.
There’s a Real Single-Player Mode
🕹️ Arcade Mode With a Fully Voiced Narrative
Knock Off includes a proper arcade-style single-player mode — pick a fighter, take on a gauntlet of opponents, and follow a fully voiced narrative through to the end.
That’s worth flagging because modern fighting games routinely under-serve solo players. A complete arcade mode with voiced story content, promised at announcement, is a meaningful commitment to the large portion of the audience who’ll never touch ranked.
👊 Fast-Paced Combat
Air combos, launchers, EX moves and spectacular supers in 2D action pitched as easy to pick up but challenging to master.
🦸 One-of-a-Kind Fighters
Handcrafted playstyles, rich move sets, assist sidekicks, and each toy’s own knock-off lore.
🥚 Easter Eggs & Extras
Battle arenas packed with hidden references, plus an unlockable retro beat-’em-up minigame with side-scrolling arcade action.
📅 Post-Launch Support
Roster expansions with new fighters and special guest characters, new stages, and more planned after release.
A Halo Veteran and a Synthwave Soundtrack
Two names attached here are worth knowing about. Bit Bot’s Creative Director is Frank O’Connor, formerly Franchise Creative Director on Halo — a substantial pedigree to find on an indie fighting game about bootleg action figures.
Action figures, toys and video games have always been about kindling and energizing imagination — not replacing it — and that notion is absolutely incandescent in Knock Off’s DNA.
— Frank O’Connor, Creative Director, Bit Bot
🎵 Scored by Celldweller and Scandroid
The original soundtrack comes from Klayton — the musician behind Celldweller and Scandroid, and a co-owner of Bit Bot Media — with high-energy tracks drawing on the sounds of the ’80s and ’90s. For a retro-fuelled fighting game, that’s close to ideal casting, and Scandroid’s synthwave sensibility in particular fits the era the game is channelling.
Having the composer as a co-owner also suggests the soundtrack isn’t a licensing arrangement bolted on late — it’s part of the project’s identity from the ground up.
Knock Off is the game we dreamed about as kids, where our favorite toys came to life and settled everything with a fight. We wanted to capture that feeling of dumping your toys on the floor and creating an entire universe in your head.
— Joshua Viola, Co-Owner, Bit Bot
👊 2D Fighter
🕹️ Arcade
🧸 Toy Nostalgia
🌐 Rollback Netcode
🏆 Ranked Play
🛋️ Local Multiplayer
Who’s Making It
🤖 Bit Bot
A multi-platform entertainment studio working across original and licensed video games, comics, collectibles, film and television. Their credits include work with Legacy of Kain, Thief, The Dark Crystal, The Terminator, Evil Dead 2, The Rocky Horror Show and Cyberpunk 2077.
🐆 Mecanimal Games
A Dominican Republic-based indie studio co-owned under the Bit Bot umbrella, bringing expertise in 3D animation and film visual effects to games. Mecanimal collaborate with Bit Bot on select projects while also developing their own original titles.
The animation and VFX background is a promising fit for this genre specifically. Fighting games live or die on animation clarity — readable startup frames, distinct silhouettes, hit reactions that communicate exactly what happened — and a team from that discipline is starting from the right place.
Knock Off: The Battle for Imagination arrives on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S in 2027, and is available to wishlist on Steam now.
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