Just before Double Dragon Revive received a new trailer at The Game Awards, I had the opportunity to go hands-on with the game and interview Project Leader Hiroshi Nagaki and Head of Global Marketing 2 Takaomi Kaneko from Arc System Works. I had the chance to play a few segments of the game using its four main characters. If you’re a fan of beat-em ‘ups, this is one to put on your radar.
Double Dragon Revive is the first new game in the series in quite some time, and it comes at a time when we’ve seen many new high-quality games in the beat ’em up genre. Right away, you can tell that Revive aims to be different, challenging the norms and staples of the genre and offering something fresh.
From the get-go, you’ll immediately notice the modern art style. Revive has gone for a style similar to what we see across the board from the biggest fighting games today. You’ll find yourself in detailed environments like subways, thief hideouts, jail cells, the streets, and more.
My 30-minute demo allowed me to test out each of the game’s four characters, who all control and operate differently. I found all kinds of different objects to interact with in the environment and use to defeat enemies, including a basketball goal that I could dunk an enemy through and even walls I could run and jump off of. There is a vast amount of interactable items and mechanics within each stage, and you can really use this to your advantage instead of simply spamming one button to attack and defeat everyone.
By far, I was most impressed with the direction that the team has elected to take. The camera is very unique, offering a 2D yet 3D feel, as you can use things like elevation and depth to navigate through each stage. This brought things to life quite a bit, and I found myself attempting to tackle groups of enemies as they walked in from different directions of the map. Double Dragon Revive takes that classic feel of 2D beat ’em ups and throws this spin on it, which ups the challenge, in my opinion. You must be aware of each of the interactables and gimmicks to truly be successful in the game.
Overall, I think Double Dragon Revive is shaping up to be a fresh take on the beloved series, but we’ll have to wait for the final game to see if that freshness lasts throughout the entire runtime. If these abilities are slowly laid out across the game, it will create a creative rush for players to gradually build up as new abilities join their arsenal.
Exclusive Interview with Hiroshi Nagaki (Project Leader) and Takaomi Kaneko (Head of Global Marketing 2)
In addition to our preview, we had the opportunity to interview both Hiroshi Nagaki and Takaomi Kaneko about their involvement with the project. A special thank you to Arc System Works for this opportunity!
What are you hoping that players get out of Double Dragon Revive as the first new entry in the series in quite some time?
Hiroshi Nagaki: It’s been seven years since the last installment of Double Dragon, so we really thought about what we could bring to this new revival of the series. What we came up with is that we want to showcase a new way of presenting the classic sidescroller beat ’em up genre. We have a lot of 3D game environments that we can rotate to view the whole environment, but we wanted to stick to the classic, traditional 2D beat ’em up style with its limited viewpoint to see how far we could push the genre.
And so, with Double Dragon Revive, I think we really want players to get a lot of it. As a classic series, one of the weak points of those traditional games was that the gameplay tended to be quite repetitive, meaning that there were one or two strong attacks that would be enough to go through the entire game. This led to many players losing interest in the middle of the game, as you kind of broke the game at that point. With this renewal of Double Dragon, we really wanted to vary the gameplay and ensure that players have many different options, encouraging them to utilize different attacks. This goes for combos, the attacks that enemies use, and making sure that one attack isn’t simply effective for everything. We really had to change it up to be efficient while progressing through the game.
Not only that, but we included quite a few environmental gimmicks. This includes the basketball hoops, dumpsters, and other objects that you can take advantage of to make your gameplay more efficient. We also introduced depth to the environments, so there isn’t just side-to-side movement but also varying altitudes in stages. This element can also be used as an offensive tool, which opens up new ways for you to approach AI enemies. This variation of actions was key for us, as we aimed to make the game less competitive. We hope players will use these different features to be creative and experiment in this fresh experience.
With Double Dragon Revive, there is a renewed visual style. What was the inspiration behind the more modern art style, and how did the team approach that decision?
Hiroshi Nagaki: We did not necessarily want to implement this sort of 3D visual style from the beginning. It was really born from our pursuit of “what can we bring to the table that is fun and interesting, which will bring excitement to the genre?” So when we thought about introducing depth, altitude, and these other gimmicks, we felt that this 3D visual style would fit this concept best. It allowed us to bring everything that we wanted to implement, so that is how we ended up with this visual style.
One of the things I noticed in my demo was the parkour movements, where you could jump over objects. How did the team bring this into the game?
Hiroshi Nagaki: This kind of goes back to what I mentioned with the weak points of the beat ’em up genre, where they tended to be repetitive. With Double Dragon Revive, our goal was to introduce lots of variation in both the environment and even how the characters move around the stage. Instead of just relying on giving characters different motions or mobility options, we wanted to utilize the environments as well. By utilizing the environments and putting these props in to get the player to move in different ways, we can really influence how the game is played. Even if you are fighting on the same enemies, your actions can drastically change depending on the environment that is around you.
As you mentioned, we have bikes, parkour, bars you can swing on, barrels, wall jumps, and many other things that can switch up the gameplay for this new entry. This is something that we introduced to give players a refreshing twist on the formula commonly seen today with the beat ’em up genre.
How did you approach designing each character with a unique skill in mind, and how many characters can we expect to see on the launch roster?
Hiroshi Nagaki: First of all, at the release timing, we will definitely have four playable characters – that is set. And depending on the performance of this game, we would like to consider additional characters via DLC moving forward.
As far as the different characters, there are different personalities and characteristics. Billy might be a little more stoic than the others, while Marian is a little more speedy. We wanted to make sure that each character could utilize the common denominator of mechanics like the stage environments and gimmicks. These are available to all characters, but at the same time, there are tweaks to each character’s toolkits, which gives them a unique twist. Marian’s speediness allows her to move a bit faster than the rest, while another character has projectiles that can be launched from a distance. Each has its own playstyle, so you can vary the gameplay between each character and suit your own preferences.
Are there any online features planned for Double Dragon Revive?
At the launch timing, we can confirm that there is a main story campaign that can be played with two players online with another player. Another thing that we are working towards, although we are not sure yet if we can make it at launch, is introducing more game modes. This includes minigames that can be played online with four people. We can’t say for sure that this will be available at launch time, but we are working to have it available around that time.
Double Dragon Revive is set to release on October 23 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Steam.
