The Batman Arkham series has arguably the most satisfying melee combat ever. The John Wick movies may have the most entertaining hand-to-hand action in all of film. Spine takes both of these influences and smashes them together to form what it hopes to be an inspired blend of free-flowing counter-focused “gun fu”, and after playing the game during Summer Game Fest Play Days, it’s trending in the right direction.
This single-player action game is set in a cyberpunk world with players controlling Redline, a rebellious graffiti artist who can fight as well as she can paint. She’s implanted with a Spine, essentially a metallic device on her back that also houses a sentient AI. Together, they’ll push back against an oppressive AI-powered regime and will look pretty cool doing it.
As I enter the first room full of goons, my Batman Arkham instincts immediately kick in as I throw a haymaker at the nearest target. I wail on them with a simple combo until a button prompt appears, signaling the trigger of a cinematic takedown. With one down, I’m on another guy in the blink of an eye, and the free-flow combat design means I can easily interrupt my combos to quickly dodge incoming gunfire (indicated by a laser sight) before resuming my beatdown. Whenever someone else tries to cut into my dance, telltale signals over their heads tip me off to perform a smooth counter, in which I flip over them. Redline can also perform a melee parry, allowing her to punish attackers with a debilitating counter.
I can’t stress enough how similarly Spine plays like Batman, and that’s a compliment. Although this alpha build still has some early rough edges surrounding some animations and parry timing, zipping around the battlefield to systematically dismantle entire mobs feels fluid and incredibly cool. Though unavailable in my demo, developer Nekki tells me that combat will also incorporate the environment. Attacking foes near interactable objects will allow Redline to automatically integrate them into her attacks. This description gives Spine’s combat the added vibe of a classic Jackie Chan film, and I’m hoping it winds up being as cool as it sounds.
The big difference between Redline and the Dark Knight, however, is her willingness to blast foes using guns. Redline uses pistols to keep foes at bay or interrupt their attacks. She’ll also just blast people’s heads in mid-melee combo à la John Wick. Pistols aren’t super powerful when simply aiming and shooting – if they were, you would never punch anyone. However, pistols deal helpful chip damage, and enough concentrated fire can drop a target. Larger firearms, such as shotguns, pack a bigger punch and end foes in one shot, but unlike pistols, shotguns and other weapons have limited ammo.
After punching, kicking, and flipping my way through grimy cyberpunk bars and alleyways, I encounter the demo’s boss, Edda Kopp. This nimble, ninja-like warrior is as quick on her feet as I am, if not faster, and she can also cloak herself to become invisible. If that’s not enough, she regularly sics several spider-like drones that double as proximity mines, exploding if I enter their radius. This battle becomes a frantic dance of parrying Edda’s combo strings while regularly flipping out of the way of an incoming spider-bot, waiting for the brief windows of opportunity to get some hits in. The fight is functionally fine, though it’s also the roughest section of my demo. The lack of polish is most evident in a loose camera that wildly spins during melee exchanges, often obscuring my view. But I can see what Nekki is going for, and hopefully, more time in the oven will help this battle reach its full potential.
Although previous trailers showed off parkour-style traversal, I didn’t get to sample this aspect of the game in my demo. That’s okay, because combat is Spine’s bread and butter. While the jury’s out on whether the story is engaging, I’m not coming to this game for a compelling narrative. I’m there to kick ass and chew bubble gum, and I’m all out of the latter. Spine has a lot of promise to fill the bat-sized hole in the action genre formed in the decade since the last Arkham game. Here’s hoping it can rise to the occasion.
Spine has no release window, but it’s slated to launch for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, and PC.
