Back in the days of Sega Mega Drives and Master Systems, there wasn’t a better scrolling sideways beat em up that Streets Of Rage and there’s never really been a true successor to its throne.

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Sure, video games have progressed a lot since then but there hasn’t really ever been a great beat em up in the same mould over that period. Maybe that’s because the sideway scroller can’t really be accurately represented in the 3D worlds that we all love to play in now, or maybe there’s another reason, but whatever the reasoning Sega have now decided to announce that Streets Of Rage 4 is finally going to be released some 24 years after the last instalment.

This isn’t even an announcement that it’s in development either – there’s a full on trailer that you can see below and it looks like they’re well on their way to porting the game into the 21st century:

Looks pretty good eh? Glad to see that they’ve kept it sideways scrolling as well, although I do wonder if there’s still the market for that now that we can do so much more with our video games. Will have to wait and see I guess.

Great to see original character Axel and Blaze back too. Here’s what the official press release says:

Streets of Rage 4 builds upon the classic trilogy’s gameplay with new mechanics, a fresh story and a gauntlet of dangerous stages with a serious crime problem. Streets of Rage 4 recalls classic gameplay but it stands as an entirely original arcade-style romp.

Unfortunately there’s no official release date yet but I’m gonna take a punt and say that this will be out before Christmas. Here’s hoping at least.

For more of the same, check out Ragin’ Justice, which pretty much looked like an updated version of Streets Of Rage earlier this year. That should tide you over.