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

By Tomas Franzese Published August 24, 2024

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 up, even though it still offers depth. I made my way from screen to screen, killing enemies with another player until I encountered an armadillo-like boss called Pangojira. This is where I had the most fun with Towerborne as I dodged his area-of-effect attacks, used the Warclub’s abilities to crowd-control the smaller enemies he spawned, and got an additional edge in battle with the abilities provided by the Umbra pet traveling alongside me.

Having run through that level a few times, I see Towerborne’s potential in terms of replay value. I didn’t even get to visit the Belfry, which is the backbone of the game’s social systems. Inspired by the Tower from Destiny 2, the Belfry will be a safe space where players can hang out with each other, plus customize their Ace, gear, and weapons. From there, players can choose missions on a world map and repeatedly go on them to level up everything they use. That’ll be the gameplay loop that ultimately makes or breaks Towerborne, but as of now, I can at least say there’s a decent beat ’em up backing this all up.

I’m curious to see how Towerborne’s live service plans play out. The developers presenting the game to me said they have the systems in place to be very quick and reactive from day one of the early access release. Outside of more minor updates and tweaks, seasonal content is also planned to keep the game going in the future, with cosmetics being the only form of microtransaction.

There are yet-to-be-implemented features like couch co-op on the way as well. If the beat ’em up and live service halves of Towerborne mesh together well, then Stoic and Xbox might have found a rare void to fill in the live service space as it appeals to players just looking for the simple and satisfying fun a beat ’em up can provide.

Towerborne will be released into Steam early access on September 10. You’ll have to buy a $25 founder’s pack to play it then, but if you wait until 2025, it’ll be free to play across PC and Xbox Series X/S.