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Back in 2022 I went to a preview occasion for The Callisto Protocol in London to write down an article for the gaming journal that I labored for on the time. Shortly after shaking arms with director Glen Schofield, he watched in surprised silence as I repeatedly died within the nook of an intense enemy encounter, awkwardly failing to swerve incoming swings with its extremely unwieldy directional dodging system.
“Have you tried using the gravity gun?” he finally advised. “I literally can’t find the button for it,” I replied. I regarded over my shoulder and noticed his head in his arms. Back then I believed that I used to be struggling as a result of I had been tossed late into the sport with no tutorial. Of course, when the sport lastly launched, I, together with tens of different gamers world wide, realized that, no, it is really simply hellish to manage.
I convey this up as a result of I could not assist however recount the episode as I walked away from my temporary hands-on time with a few of Stranger Than Heaven’s fight encounters at Summer Game Fest 2026. To be clear, I don’t suppose its mechanics are fairly that tough—however even once I absolutely understood its many idiosyncrasies, I wasn’t precisely having enjoyable.
Heavenly? Not fairly
Just like The Callisto Protocol, directionality is on the core of brawls in Stranger Than Heaven.
The left-hand facet of your controller represents the left-hand facet of the participant character’s physique, whereas the right-hand facet is the fitting. It sounds easy sufficient. You faucet the fitting bumper to swing along with your proper fist. Pull the left set off, and also you get a left kick. You’re meant to alternate between sides as you beat up thugs—depend on one an excessive amount of and so they’ll quickly cotton on and block.
Fair sufficient: switching between mashing buttons on either side sounds prefer it might need a great rhythm to it. Unfortunately, Stranger Than Heaven is much from a button masher. Encounters, particularly these in opposition to giant teams, play out at a snail’s tempo. Swings are slower than you’ll count on, and also you’re clearly meant to consider every transfer rigorously. If you’re too aggressive, you’ll get knocked down and summarily crushed to a pulp.
Enemies deal a Dark Souls degree of injury, and if one among them grabs you, they’ll simply whittle your well being bar right down to a slither in just some hits. When you do end up in a baddie’s grip, your first intuition might be to mash the dodge button to flee, however you really have to work out which facet they’re grabbing you on and ship out some assaults from the other one with a view to knock them off. It goes in opposition to principally every part that different motion brawlers have ever taught you, and feels clumsy consequently.
Don’t even consider using a well being merchandise both. For some cause, the protagonist takes what looks like an hour to scoff a single rice ball in an animation that you would be able to’t appear to interrupt, even within the face of imminent hazard. You’ll barely have an opportunity to swallow earlier than a foe unleashes a particular katana assault that cleaves you in half.
You do a minimum of get some melee weapons of your personal to even the percentages, and I acquired to strive three. My favourite was comfortably the knife, discovering it usually hilariously unbalanced. Sprinting as much as a goon whereas frantically mashing the assault button appeared to catch them completely off guard, inflicting them to freeze up and take a couple of hits earlier than really beginning to battle again.
There was additionally a second the place I used my swings to push a robust boss enemy, the supposed climax of my hands-on, right into a doorway within the background of the fight area—which he instantly grew to become caught on, giving me the chance to mince his torso into steak tartare. It felt like some well-deserved payback for the handful of instances my very own assaults inexplicably failed to attach all through the encounter.
I used to be, in fact, taking part in an early construct, so an absence of polish is to be anticipated, however watching your fists merely cross by way of somebody’s chest with no seen response lent the battle an actual sense of sloppiness that was onerous to shake. It’s a disgrace that I wasn’t in a position to pattern any of the actions exterior of the fights as properly, and even see any of the narrative past a couple of out-of-context voice strains earlier than getting caught in.
The concept of an epic story that spans 5 entire eras is actually intriguing, and I hope it is going to be in a position to make up for any fight awkwardness which may stay when Stranger Than Heaven releases for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, and PC on January 15, 2027.
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