Streets of Rage 4 Announced Nearly 25 Years After Predecessor

Dotemu announced early Monday morning that developers Lizardcube and Guard Crush Games will release Streets of Rage 4, release platform and date have not been announced at this time.

Announced almost 25 years after the Sega Genesis and Mega Drive beat ’em up Streets of Rage 3, Streets of Rage 4 plans to continue the Sega-owned beat ’em up license with modern visuals and mechanics. Streets of Rage 4 continues the story of Axel and Blaze as they make their way through the toughest streets by beating up everything in their path.

Streets of Rage 4 will have completely hand-drawn visuals created by the team at Lizardcube who used a similar art style for 2017’s Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap remake. Dotemu mentions that this title will stay true to the classic gameplay of the series, but will stand on its own as an “original arcade-style romp” thanks to the developers.

At this time, it doesn’t look like many of the original developers who worked on the series will be making a return, including iconic composers Yuzo Koshiro and Motohiro Kawashima. The developer’s list studio Kirosen as the composer for the announcement trailer, so it’s left to be if the studio plans to bring on board any of the original development team.

Developer Guard Crush Games has released a game called Streets of Fury on PC-via Steam. It’s a side-scrolling fighting game using actual people as characters making for a unique visual style seen in classic Mortal Kombat titles. The game currently holds a “Very Positive” review score from Steam users.

You can watch the announcement trailer below, which shows Axel and Blaze in a few seconds of gameplay. There’s also a few screenshots to give a better look at the game’s hand-drawn characters

Author’s take: I’ve played through the Streets of Rage series with friends many times, but it was never a series I felt totally attached to, even though it has one of the coolest video game names ever. I’m wondering about this new animated art direction as well. It’s something that the recently released Shaq Fu tried and it didn’t really stick with me.