New video shows a short piece of Streets of Rage 4 gameplay

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Some games win you over with nostalgia, and some win you over with their line work: Streets of Rage 4 wants both. On December 28, 2018, the French studio Lizardcube published a short piece of gameplay from the new chapter of Sega’s street-brawler series, along with new images.

Streets of Rage was one of the most popular beat ’em up series of the 90s, and Lizardcube already had experience reviving classics: the studio is the same one behind Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap. The project was announced in August 2018, after artist Ben Fiquet and publisher Dotemu approached Sega with a proposal for a sequel. Guard Crush Games, of Streets of Fury, is also taking part in development.

What stands out in the video is the hand-drawn look. Axel and Blaze return in a story set ten years after Streets of Rage 3, and you can see the care in the animation of the moves and the enemies, with an updated style that doesn’t forget the classic brawling. Check out the clip:

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 #Shinobi (@lizardcube) December 28, 2018

At the time, release was forecast for 2019, and platforms had not been announced yet.

What came next

The game arrived on April 30, 2020 for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PC and Xbox One, with later versions for other platforms. A nice detail: the main soundtrack went to Olivier Deriviere, with guests on the boss fights, and Yuzo Koshiro, composer of the original games, joined the project in June 2019 after playing a demo at BitSummit. On Metacritic the game has 84 on PC and 87 on Switch, and it passed 2.5 million copies sold by April 2021. On July 15, 2021 the Mr. X Nightmare DLC came out, with three new characters and a survival mode.