Kingfish Reveals an Asymmetric Two-Player Co-Op City-Builder on the Back of an Ancient Leviathan
Two roles, two views, one absurd premise. Kingfish, the next project from WheelMates developer FireVolt, was revealed today as a two-player roguelite asymmetric co-op city-builder. One player rules a kingdom in real-time third-person combat. The other player is the kingdom's ground, a giant ancient fish swimming through a monster-filled ocean. It's launching on consoles and PC via Steam in 2027.
For those still missing the idea of the Commander class in the early versions of Team Fortress 2, this could scratch the itch you might be having for that class never materializing.
A Unique Gameplay That Makes Backseat Gaming Semi-Official
One player controls The King and plays in real-time third-person on the ground, which in this case is the broad scaled back of a swimming leviathan. That player gathers resources, manages villagers, responds to immediate combat encounters, and tries to keep morale high enough to have a fighting force when night invasions hit.
The other player is The Fish, playing the bigger picture from a strategic overhead view. This player manages citywide resource production, expands and lays out structures, and organizes worker villagers, all the while watching the dark ocean for incoming threats and providing combat support by casting powerful spells when the King is in trouble. Crucially, only the Fish can see the wider sea, which would then require close communication between the two players.
Roguelite Structure With Persistent Villager Progression
Each run drops you into a new city to build, with fresh characters to meet, new buildings to construct, and new artifacts to discover. The persistent layer comes through returning villagers, who carry perks across runs for both King and Fish.
FireVolt's stated design goal is fresh terrain for the city-builder space, specifically the blend of real-time strategy and third-person action in an asymmetric cooperative shell. It's a genuinely uncommon framing that we hope would kickstart an entirely new genre of co-op games.
FireVolt is the indie team behind WheelMates, the co-op RC car puzzle adventure that launched its first public Steam demo earlier this year. The studio's stated focus is cooperative games that are easy to pick up and meant to be played together, with Kingfish being their most ambitious swing yet, alongside another in-development project called Salvation Denied.
With a launch date for 2027, the next eighteen months will be about demos, festival appearances, and convincing co-op duos to wishlist the game on Steam now. The wishlist, after all, is open today.
Copyright The Arena Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved
This story was originally published May 12, 2026 at 6:06 PM.