Devolver announces Forestrike, a kung fu roguelike where you can plan your moves in advance

YouTube YouTube
Watch On

A lot of action games promise the thrill of a choreographed martial arts movie, but when I play them the fights tend to look more like a panicked scramble than a martial arts masterpiece. If my execution's ever artful, it's during a repeat playthrough when I'm not learning on the fly.

Forestrike, an upcoming action roguelike revealed by Devolver earlier today at Japanese indie game festival BitSummit, hopes to provide a solution for the problem of delivering elegant action: It lets you see the future before you have to punch it.

In Forestrike, you play as a novice martial artist, seeking to liberate your country from the clutches of an evil admiral by conquering a series of kung fu encounters—as all the coolest revolutionaries do. You're outnumbered in every brawl, but you've got one distinct advantage: the Foresight, a kind of kung fu clairvoyance which lets you act out the fight to prepare your strategy in advance.

Essentially, Forestrike is a high-stakes action puzzle, where you're trying to find the best sequence of dodges and strikes to redirect and outlast the incoming hail of enemy blows. One failed fight ends your run, but luckily, the Foresight lets you infinitely replay the upcoming fight in your mind palace, so you have all the time in the world to troubleshoot your fight strategy.

A few rounds of Foresight sparring let you plot out whether it's safe to start the fight with an aggressive opening attack on the closest enemy, or if that'll leave you open to a thrown weapon from behind. Once you've plotted out a combat routine you're confident in, you return to the material realm of real, angry opponents to (hopefully) perform a flawless execution.

In each run, you'll be assembling a build from the techniques of one of five martial arts schools. All that kung fu is rendered Karateka-style in lovely 2D pixel art from Skeleton Crew, the makers of the 2021 action adventure Olija—a game we liked quite a bit, thanks in no small part to its excellent grappling hook. Forestrike's set to release in 2025.

News Writer

Lincoln has been writing about games for 11 years—unless you include the essays about procedural storytelling in Dwarf Fortress he convinced his college professors to accept. Leveraging the brainworms from a youth spent in World of Warcraft to write for sites like Waypoint, Polygon, and Fanbyte, Lincoln spent three years freelancing for PC Gamer before joining on as a full-time News Writer in 2024, bringing an expertise in Caves of Qud bird diplomacy, getting sons killed in Crusader Kings, and hitting dinosaurs with hammers in Monster Hunter.

Read more
An angry dwarf and a sword-wielding elf with various villains in the background in Absolum.
This mash-up of side-scrolling beat-'em-up and fantasy roguelike feels like it could be the future of a classic genre
Jean-Claude Van Damme and Michel Qissi on the poster for the movie Kickboxer
Remember the Jean-Claude Van Damme movie Kickboxer? They're making a videogame of it now
Blades of Fire's protagonist Aran prepares to attack with a very large sword.
Blades of Fire is a God of War-style action game coming to PC from the creators of Metroid Dread, and it's almost definitely a spiritual successor to Severance
A look at four heroes in SHape of Dreams, a new action roguelike by Lizard Smoothie.
Shape of Dreams' demo shows off an ingenious roguelike that wields Risk of Rain-tier finesse with action MOBA chaos, and I think I might be in love
A series of large explosions in Bio Prototype.
This bizarre roguelike has a new take on the Vampire Survivors formula: letting you build your own custom weapons out of brains, eyeballs, and chimpanzee spines
Moroi trailer still
Romanian folklore, David Lynch, and heavy metal come together in a dark fantasy hack-and-slash action game 'with an even darker sense of humor'
Latest in Action
A long bendy arm stealing money from people in a subway car
'You're a very long arm. You steal things. It's a comedy game,' explains developer of comedy game where you steal things with a very long arm
The First Berserker: Khazan review - Blade Phantom
How to claim The First Berserker: Khazan pre-order bonus and deluxe edition DLC
gta 6 trailer
Publishers 'don't want to be anywhere near' Grand Theft Auto 6 when it launches: 'It's proving to be very stressful'
An image of a Helldiver from Helldivers 2 shooting at a red dragon from Dungeons & Dragons.
'Ok, so dragon builds are a thing now': galaxy-brained Helldivers 2 player incinerates a bile titan with a hover pack and a flamethrower
Assassin's Creed Shadows promo image
Ubisoft scores a legendary ratio against Elon Musk on his own platform—which hopefully marks a final end to all the Assassin's Creed Shadows' culture war nonsense
Assassin's Creed Shadows immersive mode - Naoe holding a tanto in her hand as two guards fall to the ground behind her.
Assassin's Creed Shadows' first hotfix addresses stability issues and a photo mode crash
Latest in News
Two brightly colored stormtroopers dressed like Run-DMC stand in front of PAX Australia's WELCOME HOME banner.
Tickets for PAX Australia 2025 are on sale now
An Enshrouded player in a recreation of Erebor from The Lord of the Rings
Kings under the Mountain! 33 Enshrouded players spent 10,000 hours to recreate this iconic location from The Lord of the Rings
A mech awakens.
Mecha Break developer is considering unlocking all mechs following open beta feedback
Lara Croft Unified Art
Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics lays off 17 employees 'to better align our current business needs and the studio's future success'
A long bendy arm stealing money from people in a subway car
'You're a very long arm. You steal things. It's a comedy game,' explains developer of comedy game where you steal things with a very long arm
The heroes are attacked by monsters
Pillars of Eternity is getting turn-based combat to mark its 10th anniversary, and that means PC Gamer editors will soon be arguing about combat mechanics again