Treachery In Beatdown City Out This Month

Out at the end of this month on Steam and the Switch is Treachery in Beatdown City, from Nuchallenger – a tip of the hat and a cheeky wink towards the side-scrolling beat ‘em ups of yesteryear.

For fans of Final Fight, Mother Russia Bleeds, and the first segment from 198x, Treachery in Beatdown City is familiar territory for fans, though there are a few standout points; in particular, the fighting system.

While the likes of Streets of Rage and Ninja Saviors focus on real-time combos, Treachery in Beatdown City is a turn-based strategy – allowing a series of combos to be performed not by button bashing wizards, but strategists who literally want to beat the stats out of another player. Check out the trailer lower down to see this in action.

Paying tribute to old school arcade beat ‘em ups isn’t a unique approach these days. Most developers are well aware of the games they are emulating, or inspired by, but Nuchallenger ups the tone a little and introduces some satire to an often flat narrative (Double Dragon or Dragon Ninja for that matter – let’s celebrate with a burger, Mr President!). What’s the premise?

Not unlike similar titles, you lead a motley crew of knuckleheads onto the streets of East Fulton, cracking any unfortunate skulls that happen to get in your way. Not innocent bystanders, but typical thugs and wannabe gangsters. The objective is to storm each of the five urban maps to rescue the kidnapped President Blake Orama – a parody of Bill Clinton. No, not him – the other guy. I forget his name.

There’s a choice of three characters in Treachery in Beatdown City: police cadet Lisa Santiago, retired pro-wrestler Brad Steele and martial artist Bruce Maxwell. All great characters, all fantastically 80s and I have to say, Brad Steele seems to be the Mike Haggar of the bunch and my go-to, once I get my grazed knuckles on a copy – hopefully before release.

Presentation-wise, it looks like we’re in for some nostalgic gaming, but when it comes to gameplay with the turn-based approach and RPG elements? This could be one to watch.

Here’s a summary of the key features of Treachery in Beatdown City:

• Switch between 3 fighters in between fights – Lisa Santiago, an MMA fighter and Boxer, Bruce Maxwell, a Jeet Kune Do/Capoeira specialist, and a Brad “The Bull Killer” Steele, a former professional wrestler.
• Choose from dozens of attacks to create long chains of strike combos, grapple combos, and strikeagrapple-combos!
• Use a mix of real-time and tactical COMBO MENU based attacks to tackle your foes!
• Fight over 40 class-based enemies, each with a health-based behaviour system built to change up attacks and keep players on their toes!
• Music by Inverse Phase, creator of such albums as Pretty Eight Machine and the Chipping of Isaac
• Take in the sites of East Holden with 5 unique maps that take you through a lovingly crafted city complete with rivers, Chinatown, and of course, City Hall
• Learn about your heroes and enemies through comedic cutscenes filled with political satire, microaggressions (made famous in Get Out), and Ren and Stimpy inspired cutscene art

Can we just focus on that last point: Ren and Stimpy inspired cutscene art? Sold. One important thing to mention not yet touched upon, this release will be episode one in the series, so be prepared for futures updates in due course, and this will no doubt be reflected in the price.

I’m pretty stoked for this game, and there’s not long to wait. Treachery in Breakdown City is out on Steam and the Switch on the 31st March and currently up for pre-order.