Publisher Modus Games has announced that Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons will be heading to PC and all modern consoles. The game’s current release window is Fall 2023. Seemingly a soft reboot of the franchise to reintroduce Billy and Jimmy Lee, Double Dragon Gaiden will be a co-op beat-em-up with roguelike elements. It will also include tag-team-specific moves.
The game is being developed by Secret Base, the studio responsible for Streets of Red: Devil’s Dare Deluxe. At launch, Double Dragon Gaiden will feature only couch co-op. However, online play will be added later in the year.
In addition to Billy and Jimmy, there will be 11 other characters, all rendered in pixel art style. Modus describes the game as a “modernized celebration” of beat-em-ups, so it’s bound to have plenty of callbacks and references to other franchises.
The roguelike elements come into play through level progression and unlocks. The campaign will feature a dynamic mission select feature that lets you play levels in the order of your choosing. How you pick them will determine the mission length, number of enemies, and overall difficulty of your campaign.
Upon completing each level, you can spend tokens to upgrade your characters or unlock new ones. They can also be banked for better rewards later. If you die, however, you’ll need to either buy a continue with those tokens or spend them on permanent unlocks to make new runs easier.
That’s at least an interesting twist to think about. Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons will be available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Switch in Fall 2023.
