Ex-Kabam studio unveils DC Universe fighting game DCKO

Drop Fake has unveiled DCKO, a fighting game set in the DC Universe, putting a former Kabam team on a license that can feed both competitive play and endless character-driven updates. For mobile players, that combination is the real story here: the studio’s free-to-play pedigree, DC’s deep bench of heroes and villains, and a genre that lives or dies on roster design.

Drop Fake describes itself on LinkedIn as a Vancouver-based, 100% remote computer games company with 6,449 followers and 51-200 employees. That profile matters because the studio is not coming at DCKO as a greenfield experiment. A July 1, 2021 report said the company had raised $9 million to build multiplayer social games, with former EA vice president Katherine de Leon then leading the studio and a cross-platform 4X strategy title for PC and mobile as its initial plan.

Kabam’s name carries its own weight in this conversation. PocketGamer.biz describes Kabam as an interactive entertainment company that makes hardcore free-to-play games for social networks and other platforms, with offices in San Francisco, Austin, Beijing and Luxembourg. That background is relevant because licensed mobile brawlers are rarely judged on the logo alone. They survive on how well they pace unlocks, build out competitive ladders, and keep a roster feeling fresh long after launch.

DC gives DCKO the raw material for that kind of long-tail support. DC Comics announced DC K.O. on July 16, 2025, as a five-issue event co-created by Joshua Williamson and Scott Snyder, with Snyder writing the main series and Javi Fernández on art. The shared branding strengthens the name recognition around DCKO and keeps DC’s character pipeline active, which is exactly the kind of ecosystem mobile fighting games lean on when they add seasonal content, alternate costumes, and new matchups.

That leaves the key question hanging over DCKO’s reveal: is this being built as a real systems-first fighter, or as a brand-forward mobile release that banks on Batman and Superman to do the heavy lifting? The studio pedigree points toward ambition. Former Kabam developers know how to build around progression, collection, and live operations, and DC’s universe is broad enough to support both fan service and competitive depth if the game’s design follows through.

For now, DCKO looks less like a quick licensing play than a mobile project trying to wear its ambitions in public. A former Kabam team, a $9 million-backed studio, and a DC roster with decades of crossover potential is not the setup for a stripped-down side project.