ABSOLUM

ABSOLUM This feels like it could be the future of a classic genre

-  Robin Valentine

Genre hybrids are everywhere these days—just in 2025 so far I’ve already played a turn-based Soulslike and a city-building Tetris deckbuilder—but some new combos are so natural that it seems mad that there aren't already a hundred games doing the same thing. Absolum’s mix of side-scrolling beat ’em up and roguelike action-RPG is the best example.

Beat ‘em ups thrive in repetition—the classic formula is a short series of levels that you play over and over trying for a better and better performance. Absolum is the same, but it layers in roguelike progression systems, allowing you to gain abilities and items during a run, and upgrades between runs. The result is really compelling—a beat 'em up that keeps giving me reasons to get excited about starting a new run.

Putting structure aside for a second, at the core of Absolum is just extremely good 2D combat. Both developer Guard Crush Games and publisher Dotemu have serious experience in the genre—the former developed Streets of Rage 4, and the latter published it as well as the excellent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge.