‘Absolum’ Is a New Fantasy Beat ‘Em Up From ‘Street of Rage 4’ Devs

For players of a certain age, the beat ‘em up genre will forever be the pinnacle of gaming. Popularized first in arcades, then cemented at home during the Sega Genesis and SNES era, games like Golden Axe and Streets of Rage were a staple of cooperative action gameplay for a generation. And although plenty of developers have upheld the time-honored tradition of pairing up buddies to kick all kinds of enemy ass in recent years, no company has hit the mark quite like the retro revival artists at Dotemu.

Since 2017’s Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap, the French-based company has worked with a number of studios to reinvent retro franchises with a modern take on sequels and spin-offs, with games like Windjammers 2 (2022), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge (2022), and Metal Slug Tactics (2024) all paying homage to some of the most beloved franchises of the arcade era while streamlining (or reimaging entirely) the experiences for today’s audiences. Partnering with the developers at Lizardcube and Guard Crush Games, Dotemu is best known for blessing the world with 2020’s Streets of Rage 4, a near-perfect sequel to one of the greatest co-op brawlers of the Nineties — and itself one of the premier examples of the genre.

Now, the beat ‘em up kings are back with an all-new game that serves as a spiritual successor to Streets of Rage 4 and much more. Announced today with a trailer on YouTube, Absolum is Dotemu’s latest take on the side-scrolling action formula and combines the illustrated aesthetic and crunchy ass-kicking of SoR with a Dungeons & Dragons-like fantasy setting. The game is set to be released on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 & 5, and PC sometime in 2025.

Dubbed an RPG “rogue ‘em up,” Absolum combines the two-player melee combat of classic coin-ops with player customization and progression systems that add a role-playing flavor in line with the fantasy setting. Most importantly, it’s also Dotemu’s first-ever original IP, a huge change of pace for the company whose biggest claim to fame has been successfully resurrecting long-dormant franchises.

Ahead of the official reveal, Rolling Stone was able to preview the early hours of Absolum, playing through several of its branching levels, testing out two of its four selectable characters, and lamenting the beatings taken from big boss battles. What we found was that Absolum is a small but mighty genre mash-up that just became one of the year’s most anticipated games.

What is Absolum?

Co-developed by Dotemu, Guard Crush Games, and French animation studio Supa Monks, Absolum is (unsurprisingly) a throwback beat ‘em up styled game that looks and plays much like the stellar Streets of Rage 4, albeit with a fantasy twist. Inspired by games like Golden Axe (1989) and Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow over Mystara (1996), Absolum allows players to choose between four characters of different fantasy races (like elves or dwarves), each with a unique class, to battle solo or cooperatively through its many levels.

Set in the fictional world of Talamh, a cataclysmic event has led to the Sun King Azra’s ban on magic, resulting in the extermination of all wizards and magic-users. Under Azra’s oppressive regime, a rebellion headed by a mythical figure known as Uchawi, in alliance with the forest-dwelling Root Sisters, has grown in the shadows to take back Talamh and restore its magical essence.

Of the four available characters in the final product, the preview of Absolum offered access to two options, both of which were shown in the initial reveal trailer. Galandra is an elf-like warrior whose agility makes her keen with a blade for up-close combat; Karl is a stout dwarf outfitted with a rifle that makes him a damage-dealing (and damage-soaking) threat at all ranges.

 Players can swap between either character at the beginning of each game’s run (more on that later) within their home base encampment. Little is known about the other playable characters — or, based on the post-launch content for Streets of Rage 4 and TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge, likely future additions to the roster — but everything here falls squarely into the archetypes audiences know from fantasy games and media. There will likely be more magic-oriented spellcasters or berserker-like beefcakes that round out the many classes that often come with the genre.

Like Streets of Rage 4 and many other Dotemu titles, one of the biggest draws for Absolum is its gorgeous visual design. While it could’ve gone with a fluid pixel-art aesthetic like Dotemu’s other big 2025 release, Ninja Gaiden Ragebound, Absolum instead utilizes a fully illustrated aesthetic that brings a spritely charm to its world. From its opening moments, the game is a joy to look at, with a lush, ink-edged tone that evokes another fan-favorite indie, 2020’s Hades, in its hyper-detailed character portraits.

Outside of the playable avatars, there’s also a litany of supporting characters that each have their own individual fantasy vibe. Exploring the main hub that opens the game, there’s NPCs like the ogre-like Raken the Berserker and Maugis, a mysteriously veiled tentacled figure, both of which can help users upgrade their various abilities to power up with permanent unlocks that give Absolum its RPG-like functionality.

How does Absolum play?

At first blush, Absolum feels nearly identical to Streets of Rage 4, which makes sense. In a roundtable discussion prior to the demo, the creators of the game confirmed that it’s built on an evolved version of the engine that ran the previous brawler, and it can be felt in the ways each character moves and attacks.

But unlike Streets of Rage and its ilk, the RPG-like aspects of Absolum allow players to do more than just punch, kick, and use the occasional health-depleting special move. Each character has their own mana meter that can be expended to use magical attacks, in addition to more complex blocking, dashing, and parrying skills than what’s been seen in Dotemu’s previous releases. It’s extremely easy to pick up and read, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. At its base difficulty, the game is challenging, and players will need to quickly learn to utilize all the skills at their disposal to make it very far.

And “making it far” is key here, as the biggest surprise while playing Absolum is that it isn’t exactly a basic arcade-style game where players work their way through simple sequential levels. It’s actually more of a “roguelike.” Although the phrase wasn’t used in the preview discussions and doesn’t appear anywhere in its press packet, the main conceit of the game is ostensibly a roguelike structure, meaning that players must start the game at their home base and complete each level through branching paths all the way through end in one go. Die, and they’ll be sent back to the start to lick their wounds and spend the various currencies they’ve gathered to strength up for their next run.

Sure, all arcade-like games demand that users complete the quest in a single playthrough (or dig into their pockets for continues), but the overall structure of Absolum is highly reminiscent (once again) of Hades. Upon acquiring the world map, it’s clear that there’s multiple continents to carve through, as with Hades’ multi-leveled approach to the Greek underworld, and each area has to be cleared in a single playthrough that’d be considered a “run.” Unlike beat ‘em ups of yore that send players back to the start empty-handed after a game over, Absolum incorporates the death, revival, and power-up loop into its gameplay in ways that clearly resemble the “roguelike” genre.

But there’s more similarities than just the life cycle. Each region has branching areas that reveal themselves only after a couple of runs. Getting far enough in any one area before dying, players will find that their next approach might look very different, with new or stronger enemies, unknown environments and level layouts, and completely fresh pathways that are unlocked after meeting certain conditions or taking actions along the way. It doesn’t feel as randomized as a pure roguelike like Dead Cells, with the world seemingly having more intentional design rather than being procedurally generated and unrecognizable. But for those who are accustomed to memorizing every beat of the levels in Streets of Rage 4 to survive, the fluidity can be surprising.

But, like Hades, each region has midway points and ending caps that allow players to better interact with the game’s characters and worlds. After a particularly grueling boss fight in the starting land, a small village becomes available to explore; now freed from the baddies, the once-antagonistic goblins now offer new items and dialogue that provide deeper context to their scenario than had been seen prior to storming in to kick a goblin king’s ass (Gazorg, Son of Zorg — obviously). You can even hire NPCs from within the towns to tag along as support in battle, taking on the role that would otherwise be held by a buddy in co-op.

A retro flavored treat

Although Dotemu is now famous as the studio retro revival savants, it’s exciting to see the publisher break out into their own with an all-new IP. After conquering (and perfecting) the beat ‘em up genre time and again over just a short few years, it would’ve been easy for the French company to merely show up this year with Streets of Rage 5 and call it day. People would’ve loved it (we still would!), but the announcement of Absolum is a surprising and much welcomed step forward for a company that’s become a stealth giant in indie gaming.

While the playtest of Absolum was limited to just a handful of the opening levels, it was quickly clear that even with just a small chunk of the game’s overall content that the experience is one intended for many playthroughs. Despite having only made it to the second boss encounter, going back to the starting point HQ allowed for multiple levels of progression and easily half a dozen new abilities to be learned for each of the two available characters.

In just a short amount of time, Galandra and Karl went from base-level heroes to powerful forces, although the challenges ahead evolved in tandem to maintain a measured pace and persistent difficulty. With new pathways unfurling and just an inkling of what the full story holds in store, the preview build of Absolum left us wanting to see much more.

For fans of side-scrolling beat ‘em ups, Absolum has all the hallmarks of the genre’s best entries, while weaving in many of the aspects of fantasy-tinged games like Golden Axe and the arcade-focused Dungeons & Dragons series from the Nineties. Weaving together the crunchy style of Streets of Rage with the progressive aspects of titles like Hades — all wrapped in a stunning paint-like veneer — Absolum has just jumped to the top of must-have list. If the full game can continue doling our surprises at the pace of the demo, it’ll likely be one groups of friends can pick up for the long haul.

Absolum will launch sometimes in 2025 for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 & 5, and PC.