Review
Chained Beasts review
By Kir Notold ·
Coop rogue-like about gladiators
| Score | 6/10 |
|---|---|
| Title | Chained Beasts |
| Release date | 2026 |
| Genre | Coop Action Roguelike |
| Developer | Featherweight Games |
| Publisher | Featherweight Games |
| Price | ?? |
| Steam rating | Overwhelmingly Positive (98%) |
As usual, a few words about the developers first. The game is being made by a small Australian studio called Featherweight Games, whose main thing is… mobile games! This is basically their first big project. I stumbled across it the way I usually do — completely by accident 😁 Luckily, I have a wonderful friend who’s happy to join me for all sorts of unhinged nonsense!
The gameplay goes roughly like this: you pick two gladiators from the available characters. Each has their own passive abilities. We unlocked the Goat, the Wolf, and, I think, the Tiger. You’re chained together, fighting waves of enemies in an arena. With the right positioning, you can use that chain to trip enemies up. But the same chain also stops you from getting too far apart. And the cherry on top — friendly fire, which works beautifully😂
After each wave, you get a break, pick a passive ability, and have a chance to “heal up.” In quotes, because the healing comes with a debuff, and the more HP your chosen bottle restores, the nastier that debuff is. Here’s some of what we saw and experienced:
- your character can’t stand still and keeps moving forwards
- a sizeable area around your character gets heavily “blurred,” so you can only vaguely make out what’s happening
- you can’t walk in a straight line
- you start seeing double after taking damage
There’s a little shop where you can buy items or passives with the money you earn from each fight. And the more spectacular your fight, the more money you get. Gotta keep the bloodthirsty crowd happy if you want better gear☺️
Before each wave, you’re given a random weapon. Ones we definitely saw: a sword, a mace and a morning star, a spear, a big wooden stick, and a bow. You can grab a shield too (to block attacks from the baddies). More stuff is scattered around the arena itself. One neat feature — you can throw any weapon. You can also throw an enemy. Or a piece of an enemy. Say you happen to rip someone’s head off! Or an arm or a leg. Or you can lob a massive vase. Honestly, chucking random stuff around is the best part of the gameplay😂
The final wave is a boss. We beat him on our second attempt. It wasn’t exactly super hard, but it was fun!
All of this comes with some pumping tunes and an interesting pixel art style. The animations are nice, the finishers are brutal, and there’s plenty of blood😁
Verdict
That was damn good fun! Just the right amount of unhinged, with a fun healing-and-debuff system. Brutal brawls with buckets of blood, simple and straightforward gameplay, nice audio, funny NPCs, and loads of dark humour.
The only thing I’m unsure about is replayability. We only did 2 runs (that’s where the demo ended), but I’m not really sure what changes from there. New arenas and new enemies? Cool, but only once. A story? Can’t say I noticed one. For now, it feels like a “couple of evenings” kind of game — play for an hour, have a laugh, uninstall.
We’ll see what it’s like at release and how it develops from there. Here’s the link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3569420/Chained_Beasts/
Peace, everyone! ❤️