Towerborne is a live-service beat ’em up — and that wild idea actually works

This story is part of our Summer Gaming Marathon series.

Whenever I’m in a gaming rut and not sure what to play, I know I can always boot up a beat ’em up like Street of Rage 4, Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons, or Castle Crashers and have a good time. If I’m just in the mood for some mindless action, I can button-mash my way through levels as a superpowered fighter. If I want something more involved, I’ll take the time to learn and execute powerful combos, as well as find ways to engage with the game’s systems on a deeper level. Developer Stoic smartly recognized that this is a kind of game loop common in many live service games, so it’s working with Xbox Game Studios to make a live service beat ’em up called Towerborne.

Towerborne will enter early access on Steam next month, but I had the chance to play it early at an Xbox event in Los Angeles. While I wasn’t able to go hands-on with most of the social-focused systems that will make Towerborne stand out from the crowd, I can attest to its solid fantasy beat ’em up core that I can see myself sinking countless hours into when I’m back in one of those gaming ruts.

At release, Towerborne will feature a variety of different weapons to equip your heroes (called Aces here) with. I had the chance to try out two of those weapons: the Warclub and Dual Daggers. That first one combines a club with a canon, can deal lots of damage, and was good at crowd control. Its caveat was being slow to attack, which left me open to taking damage as I waited for hit animations to play out or while it charged up its heat meter. Meanwhile, the Dual Daggers were less powerful, but emphasized quick attacks and movement. I preferred the Warclub, but I could see myself using the Dual Daggers when I’m in a button-mashing mood.

With maxed-out gear, this demo saw me playing through a level in Towerborne‘s grasslands. It features a crisp cel-shaded look and feels very approachable for a beat ’em