Apples are pretty good, just like beat 'em ups

09 Apr, 2026

I tend to chat with a friend of mine about the "current state of beat 'em ups" a ton. I dunno if it's "all time favorite genre" material for me, but I enjoy me a little Shadows of Mystara here and there. Said friend sent me a video from Second Wind recently that I liked a fair bit, especially since it gets at some underlying issues I've been feeling for a while. It does also have the bigger problem of something I always find frustrating to hear - the act that beat 'em ups need to evolve or "get with the times" in some way.

The core of the apple

From the start, I feel the genre as a whole is really misunderstood at this point. A strong factor the video brings up is stagnation via nostalgia, which is partially true. Like most forms of design, form & function are both vital for a quality entry in the beat 'em up genre. In reality however, most of the reverence from the public is centered on the former. Beat 'em ups, ideally should be vastly more than just aping the looks of their 90's highlights, but specifically should be centered on repeated mastery.

Any average game usually asks the player to attempt its challenges multiple times over - this is just a basic core tenet to game design. For beat 'em ups however, added on top of this is two specific challenges: level memorization and resource management. Remembering wave phases and enemy counts, knowing what moves work best for crowd control vs. what chains well, frame data, weapon and item pickup locations - this is what makes the genre unique.¹ Similar to another arcade-birthed genre - the STG (or shmup), optimizing a route through the level using this stored knowledge is not really replicated commonly elsewhere.² On top this, you then start asking the player to work in resource management (using supers vs. saving health, maximizing score to accumulate lives) and eventually single credit challenges too!

A huge problem that I don't think gets addressed enough with the genre is the minimizing of these approaches to difficulty. Just like fighting games, even the slight change to the rhythm of a 3 hit string or an adjustment to a punch's hitbox can change so much of how a beat 'em up feels. This alone is an art in itself that takes a ton to balance, but it's easy to toss it away as simple unimportant changes versus larger modifications like levels or enemy appearances. This nuance is vital to value when it comes to thinking about the genre.

Red Delicious and Granny Smiths are not the same

Of course, the expected immediate connection from beat 'em ups to modern genres is going to be character action. Both genres are good and got plenty of similarities! Similarities and inspirations don't make them one in the same however, especially when their goals for the player make them very distinct from each other.

Character action hinges on player expression. You're obviously there to clear the room of enemies, but it's about looking rad as all get out instead of using the least amount of resources. Devil May Cry combo videos are captivating for this very reason! A beat 'em up may have a specific input for a launcher, but a character action game will provide multiple options, with each move having situational uses & cons. The goal of the former is to utilize your static moveset to clear challenges unscathed, like a puzzle. With this, that's where that aspect of study and memorization coalesces into optimization. I would also mention that optimization doesn't necessarily mean perfection - it's all about bettering yourself, your score and finding little gains!

Past harvests shouldn't determine our current ones

Getting back to the actual point of beat 'em ups stagnating, I do agree that a big part of it is nostalgia. For better or worse, the 90's domination of Konami & Capcom's output has left a huge mark on how people view the genre. Enough so that it's tough for anyone to move out of that incredibly vast shadow. Nowadays, studios view the only "safe" way to invest the time & resources to develop a new high profile beat 'em up immediately means it must work into an existing IP. This is on top of the fact it's so straddled with nostalgic baggage to a singular era that it only caters to fans of that time. Anything new is always paired with series that aim toward that older crowd - He-Man, Power Rangers, G.I. Joe, Toxic Avenger.³ That particular part resonates with me a ton, it's really tiring.

This wouldn't even be a huge problem if new titles and attempts understood those core aspects (memorization, management, mastery) and either highlighted them or evolved them in new ways. The video brings up the game as not doing much to advance the genre, but Marvel Cosmic Invasion's tag system is a great example of taking core genre aspects and adding its own flair. Even without that current example, innovation has happened throughout the years - it's just not as bombastic or showy as others may expect.

• River City Ransom's exploration and shops are both important to the genre and unique enough in its own right. So much so that it still provides that flair to modern titles like The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa and, as mentioned in the video, Scott Pilgrim EX.⁴
• Not as famous as the rest of Capcom's output then, Battle Circuit's moveset customization and shop between levels was great! It gave players not only a new way to personalize and find optimal setups, but also multiple ways to approach the same character. This also extends to an even earlier Capcom release, Armored Warriors.
• The Mr. X Nightmare DLC for Streets of Rage 4 is an innovation on the structural level for beat 'em ups rather than gameplay systems. It provides a stellar interpretation of roguelike systems while still focusing on the core philosophy of "how do I handle this group of enemies cleanly". This even helps create the core loop integral to another mentioned recent release - Absolum!

Multiple ways to skin an apple

Lastly, I do want to get at the aspect of '3D beat 'em ups'. This is not a fault of this video alone, but so many people bring them up as either an anomaly or antiquated. Sifu and Yakuza are commonly brought up as successors - I totally agree! They totally do a great job at interpreting those core aspects I mentioned. I wouldn't call them the only method or evolution of the genre. More games should explore combat like Sifu, but Sifu hinges its identity so much on its core combat mechanic too. It makes it tough to shift that combat to other titles, not without just being Arkham Asylum's approach. Yakuza, on the other hand, absolutely has the trappings of a beat 'em up. Its problem is that it also has everything else going on. It's one of the rare cases I'd almost just slap the broad "action RPG" title on it - that's rather unfair to both it and Shemue though. Of course, even going further back, there's the direct interpretation of the '3D beat 'em up' as a phrase within Fighting Force.

My main core issue with this thought experiment of looking at the genre's move into the third dimension is that it equates the adoption of new tech as a requirement for moving forward & evolving. We've already been decades past the era of not seeing 2D games as new & exciting as 3D experiences. A genre should not be defined by the development techniques it takes on from generation to generation! Instead, it should be defined by the challenges its core features provide to the player. FPS games shouldn't be defined by a control layout or needing to hit the usual gun staples, but be tested by how they tackle situational awareness, aiming and more.

I wrote way more than I expected, to be quite honest. Beat 'em ups are cool, they don't need to change as much as they need to stop having boomer ass series attached to them.

#beat 'em ups #design thoughts #random thoughts