One of my favorite things about PAX, beside the schwag, is finding little games I've never heard of that end up being insanely fun. Last year, I discovered Secret Ponchos, which is coming soon to the PlayStation 4. This year, that little gem just might be Brawlhalla — a game coming soon to Steam Early Access and about to enter Beta.
Brawlhalla is a 2D platform fighter — similar to Super Smash Bros. — developed by Blue Mammoth Games. The fights support up to four players or bots, where the fighter takes on a certain fighting style by picking up a weapon, which are constantly popping up on the map. There's a huge hammer, a sword, a power drill, laser guns, mines, bombs and more.
While every character is just a skin with a blank slate waiting to have its attack set filled by whatever weapon they pick up, the developers are still deciding what they want to do with characters. We are playing a very basic mode with very basic heavy and light attacks associated with the weapon. But the devs are trying to figure out what they want a character to be. They know that there will be talents that a player can choose to change the gameplay style with a character, but as far as specific abilities, that's not confirmed yet.
What I can tell you is that the controls (we played on an Xbox 360 controller) are great, the art style is awesome, and the characters range from a cowboy to a viking. It's only coming to Steam for now, but the developers said that it could come to other platforms. It harkens back to those days when my friends and I would sit around a small television and play Super Smash Bros. for hours. It's that kind of fun. While we played the local four-player free-for-all, there is also and online free-for-all that are ranked, and four-player local team mode where you face off against four bots, and online team mode where two teams of five face off against each other.
Keep a look out for Brawlhalla on Steam Early Access.
You can follow Senior Editor Lance Liebl on Twitter @Lance_GZ. He likes talking sports, video games, movies, and the stupidity of celebrities. Email at [email protected]
