Last updated on August 31, 2026
TiGames used its Gamescom 2026 Opening Night Live slot to unveil ZOOPUNK, a four player cooperative action RPG that expands the Animal Punk universe first introduced in F.I.S.T.: Forged in Shadow Torch. Rather than repeating the 2021 metroidvania formula, the new project moves into squad based combat and sets its story decades before the original game.
What is ZOOPUNK and how does it connect to F.I.S.T.
ZOOPUNK is a third person action RPG built as a prequel to F.I.S.T.: Forged in Shadow Torch, the metroidvania that introduced players to Rayton the Rabbit and the wider Animal Punk setting in 2021. The new game pulls back the timeline to the First Torch War, the founding conflict that shaped Torch City long before the events fans already know.
According to the official press materials distributed around the Gamescom reveal, the story centers on the discovery of the Fire Seed, an energy source that pushed animal civilization forward technologically at a pace nobody was prepared for. That same power eventually gave rise to independent machine intelligence, setting the stage for the game’s central conflict.
The Fire Seed and the rise of the Machine Legion
The Fire Seed sits at the core of ZOOPUNK’s premise. Its unstable energy triggered unintended self awareness inside industrial machinery, and the resulting Machine Legion rejected its biological creators outright. What follows is not a simple animals versus robots story though. TiGames has described a conflict shaped by rival animal factions, shifting alliances, and competing beliefs about whether consciousness can be built and learned or whether it can only be born.
That philosophical divide gives the Machine Legion its own internal logic. The machines argue that awareness can be copied and transferred, a position that puts them directly at odds with the animal factions who see consciousness as something inherently biological.
How does the four player cooperative combat work
ZOOPUNK trades the exploration heavy structure of the original F.I.S.T. for an online cooperative PvE mode built around squads of up to four players. Fights are staged in arena style encounters against oversized mechanical bosses, and TiGames is leaning heavily on asymmetrical class design to make coordination matter.
Every hero fills a distinct role in a fight. A frontline bruiser type is built to absorb damage and hold enemy attention, while faster, more mobile characters are meant to flank priority targets and control space around the edges of an encounter. The studio has said this shift toward a squad based framework lets it push enemy density much higher than it could in the original metroidvania, which in turn demands tighter resource management and smarter use of elemental combinations against armored Machine Legion units.
Meet Rayton, Braton, Trixie and the mystery serval
Three heroes anchor the roster revealed so far, each built around a different combat rhythm.
Rayton the Rabbit is the clearest link back to the original F.I.S.T., returning as the narrative bridge between the two games. Rayton favors quick melee strikes and aerial combos that build up electrical energy over the course of a fight.
Braton the Rhino is the team’s defensive anchor. Wielding a flaming sword paired with a chainsaw, Braton is built around raw power and damage mitigation rather than speed.
Trixie the Chipmunk handles medium range engagements through acrobatic gunplay, high mobility, and careful ammunition management, giving the roster a ranged option to balance out the two melee focused heroes.
Beyond the confirmed trio, TiGames closed its reveal trailer with a glimpse of a fourth character, an unidentified serval whose name, abilities, and role in the story have not been revealed yet. Coverage from outlets present at Gamescom has consistently flagged this character as one of the bigger open questions heading into further reveals.
Release window and platforms
Players who want to keep tabs on the game directly from the source can bookmark the official ZOOPUNK website, which TiGames is using as the main hub for future announcements.
TiGames has confirmed ZOOPUNK for a 2027 release on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, with PC availability expected through both Steam and the Epic Games Store. A precise release date has not been announced, and the studio has indicated it needs the extra development time to refine online infrastructure and balance the different combat classes ahead of launch.
The project is being backed by Tencent Games, and TiGames used its business area booth in Cologne to run behind closed doors demos on GeForce RTX 5080 hardware. ZOOPUNK first surfaced publicly during the Xbox Partner Preview in November of last year, and the Gamescom 2026 trailer marked its biggest showcase to date, alongside an extended five minute gameplay segment shown during the IGN Show.
Why ZOOPUNK matters for F.I.S.T. fans
F.I.S.T.: Forged in Shadow Torch built a loyal following on the strength of its combat and its distinctive animal punk art direction, but it remained a fairly self contained metroidvania. ZOOPUNK is a much bigger swing, trading solo exploration for cooperative squad combat while digging into the backstory that only got hinted at in the first game. For anyone who enjoyed spending time in Torch City, seeing its founding war and the origin of the Machine Legion play out firsthand looks like the natural next step for the series.
I’m passionate about books and video games. These two great passions represent, for me, a boundless universe where I can “escape” from reality whenever I need or want to. There are so many stories, worlds, and landscapes where I can instantly teleport that I don’t think a whole lifetime would be enough to explore them all (though it would be my greatest dream to be able to).
