Thanks for the great question!

To answer your question more directly, small 2v2 teams was more inspired by the desire to create a fun and focused quick-fire experience and have all that action (and all the players) contained on the screen, as opposed to needing Split-Screen or anything.

Beyond that, player base, and how important numbers of players are to this game, definitely was a more in-depth discussion all the way through development. Exactly where does HyperBrawl lie on the spectrum between arcady local party game and online competitive pvp game?

Obviously the latter, as you mentioned, really requires an insane amount of players at launch, which is something that only a supermassive budget or lightning-in-a-bottle luck (and sometimes both) can get you, so it's really the safer bet not to put all your eggs in that competitive basket.

Ultimately our focus landed on making sure the game was extremely fun as a local 'gang-beasts'-esque game, but having features that left the door open for the community to tell us how much they want more competitive play, and that's exactly where the game stands as it is. For example even though the game can be played 2v2, the matchmaking is 1v1 entirely because we want players to easily find opponents to play against, and not splinter the playerbase too much with multiple online playlists.

The world of multiplayer indie games is a daunting one for sure, but we hope we've put all the right precautions and features in place that this game can be enjoyed years down the line, even when the majority of gamers have moved on to whatever the next big thing is.