Streets of Rage 4 was one of the more surprising reveals of last year. The beautifully-animated teaser trailer and associated screenshots left beat-’em-up fanatics whet with anticipation for the sequel. But since last August, we haven’t heard much about the game. Both Dotemu and Developer LizardCube have been remarkably tight-lipped about it.
But to ease us along it seems, the companies have released some new Streets of Rage 4 screenshots. Initially an IGN exclusive, the screenshots show off the game in all its cartoony, flamboyant glory. Axel and Blaze are still very much as badass as they were back in the ’90s and this shows that in spades.
But that’s not all. LizardCube have released a six-second ‘GIF’ showing the gameplay in motion. While not long, it does give us an insight into the characters’ animations and a few of their movesets.
And here's a short gif/video segment of Streets of Rage 4 gameplay (as featured in the @IGN article) #SOR4 pic.twitter.com/ifeZO8qoYA
— Lizardcube #ThirdGame (@lizardcube) December 28, 2018
Other than the screenshots and the short clip, there isn’t much more to go on. Publisher Dotemu and Developers LizardCube and Guard Crush Games have been sparse with the details thus far. They’re not even sure of a release date (or even the consoles the game will go on!). The companies will only reveal these things once they feel Streets of Rage 4 is in a good enough state to do so.
What is known, however, is that the game will feature more playable characters than Axel and Blaze (the only two revealed so far). New to Streets of Rage 4 is the ability to recover your character’s health spent via special attacks by performing successive follow-up attacks. You can also juggle opponents against each other and walls for extended combos.
The plots of the games have always been light on depth (these were 16-bit side-scrolling fighters from the ’90s after all), but we know that Streets of Rage 4 is set roughly ten years after the original trilogy. The characters, originally twentysomethings, are now in their thirties – and still kicking ass.
Fans have voiced their support for the original trilogy’s composer, Yuzo Koshiro, but as of now, details on the soundtrack are non-existent.
Are you looking forward to Streets of Rage 4? Let us know in the comments below…