Once I was first requested to take a look at Spine at Summer season Sport Fest 2025, I hadn’t heard of it but. I looked it up on Steam and thought it regarded fairly rad, so I booked an appointment, although I additionally anticipated it will kick my butt. Generally that is the job, and that is okay. I in contrast it to Sifu in my thoughts, which I at all times discovered to be actually tough. Nonetheless, as soon as I acquired to go hands-on with it, I discovered it is extra like a Batman Arkham recreation when it comes to its fight gameplay. These acquainted mechanics helped me look trendy and lethal in my demo, and put Backbone on my radar forward of its launch subsequent yr.
Backbone comes from Nekki, a workforce that has beforehand developed cellular video games, together with the favored Shadow Battle collection. Even Backbone initially started as a cellular recreation, however because the challenge grew and took on a distinct form, the workforce realized it had a chance to make its debut on PC and consoles. Impressed by the profession works of John Woo and different trendy motion motion pictures, Backbone is a “gun-fu” fight recreation in a cyberpunk setting with a easy story setup.
In it, you play as Redline, a personality whose bodily look is so cool in my view that it acquired me to e-book the demo. The punky avenue artist’s origin story is very like John Wick’s, although as a substitute of a useless canine, it is her kidnapped brother who compels her to get into ass-kicking mode. The 15-20 hour recreation is alleged to start out small when it comes to Redline’s motivation and enhance the stakes from there. What she expects is a private quest to avoid wasting her brother quickly pulls her right into a felony underworld of AI overlords and corrupt individuals in energy throughout the colourful however troubled metropolis.
In my time with the sport, I lit up unhealthy guys in bars, hallways, and rooftops with roundhouse kicks, haymakers, and blasts of my dual-wielded pistols. The sport wears its inspirations on its sleeve. It is a recreation from individuals who unabashedly love motion pictures like The Matrix and Arduous Boiled. Nekki is not shying away from that, maybe greatest displayed in its hallway battle scene paying homage to Oldboy. It is leaning into it. However I used to be comfortable to see the sport makes use of fight programs extra just like the Batman Arkham collection, by which it is not too robust to chain collectively assault combos, execute well-timed counters to maintain chains alive, and periodically change to ending strikes carried out by urgent a pair of face buttons.
Redline was fierce and swift, taking down teams of 4 or extra enemies at a time with regularity. I might additionally use a set off button to spray-paint enemies huddled round me, very like Batman’s cap stun assault. The paint would stick with the enemies and the setting, giving it a pleasant visible contact by which you actually left your mark on a brawl. I might shoot every time I wished to, but it surely’s not a shooter. The weapons have been greatest used as combo finishers, which you’ll be able to see trendy examples of within the trailer above.
Whereas the sport will not essentially be “simple,” it is not meant to ship you beating your head right into a wall. With individuals’s busy schedules in thoughts, a developer instructed me the studio needs gamers to have the ability to play for simply a short time and really feel like they’ve made progress. If you happen to come house from work and solely have a bit of time to play video games, it’s best to be capable of load up Backbone, crack a number of skulls, and really feel such as you’ve achieved one thing in your brief timeframe. And for gamers who do need extra of a problem, the sport will supply a mode by which you must keep away from taking any harm in any respect. Good luck with that.
I appreciated Sifu, however extra on the deserves of its artwork course, story, and, certain, how good the fight regarded after I might pull it off. However Backbone made me really feel simply as highly effective with out the accompanying frustrations, and personally, I am far more up for that form of expertise. Whereas some video games of this type go away me feeling like a anonymous goon at instances, Backbone made me really feel like one in all Keanu Reeves’ punchiest roles.
Backbone involves PC, PS5, and Xbox Sequence X|S in 2026.
