Recently, the team at Stoic and Xbox granted me early access to Towerborne’s latest version, ahead of Towerborne’s wider Xbox console early access rollout on April 29, 2025.
Towerborne is a side-scrolling beat ’em up in the vein of games like Golden Axe and Streets of Rage, albeit with a modern twist. It’s fully 3D, and riffs on many more “modern” combat expectations, complete with invincibility frames for dodge rolls, full build control, loot grinding, and more.
The first comparison that came to mind when I previewed Towerborne’s earlier builds last year was, “Hey, this is a bit like Golden Axe meets Diablo.”
Indeed, Towerborne’s Xbox Game Preview launch date here is particularly interesting for me, because it goes head to head with another Microsoft game. Diablo 4’s Season 8 rollout is also on April 29, 2025, and both games revolve around loot, tight combat, and endless build design possibilities as their core gameplay loops.
I don’t think it would be a stretch to say Towerborne finds itself as a bit of an underdog here, though … or is it?
Built by Stoic, known for The Banner Saga, Towerborne is actually going to be fully free to play when it’s eventually finished, with monetization revolving around cosmetics in their entirety. It’s an absolutely bold strategy in a world with Genshin Impacts, Diablo Immortals, and Zenless Zone Zeroes (which was also just announced for Xbox) — but Towerborne occupies an underserved genre, oft-overlooked by service-type games.
I was unimpressed with Towerborne’s initial Early Access offering on Steam, even though the potential from early builds at Gamescom and the like was clear.
It felt like Towerborne hadn’t made a huge amount of progress between then and Christmas last year, which is when I last tried it out, making me question whether it could be a hit. However, a major recent update shows that Towerborne has turned a similarly major corner.
Over the past week, I found myself unexpectedly addicted to Towerborne. The game’s impressively tight combat is doused in heady nostalgia for a Streets of Rage kid like myself. And I’m an unashamed service game junkie.
Towerborne could have a winning formula on its hands, particularly for gamers of a certain age where time constraints are an issue. But, there are a few caveats and feedback I would like to share.
Let me explain.
Tight beat ’em up gameplay that feels as fresh as it does nostalgic
One aspect of Towerborne I absolutely cannot fault is its combat. Towerborne counts Killer Instinct combat designers within its team, and that thoughtfulness and flair really shine through every time you hit a button in Towerborne.
Classes in Towerborne are defined by the weapons you equip. Right now, there are four; one is essentially giant earth-shaking boxing gloves, another is a shotgun attached to a staff, there are rogue-style dual-wield daggers, and a standard almost Soulsian sword-and-shield combo.
Each weapon feels incredibly tight, precise, and varied in use, with punchy sound effects and great visuals. A huge roster of combos, special moves, and basic attacks that can combine and chain in unexpected ways — Towerborne’s combat is clearly a labor of love, and the subject of a ton of polish.
As you level up in Towerborne, you’re given skill points that can be attached to cards that unlock new moves and abilities. One of mine allowed me to perform an uppercut, which was useful to begin aerial juggling enemies.
Another allowed me to correct myself in the air if I got knocked flying. There are also support passives that boost your active healing potion pool, and can even help you support allies with defensive boosts as well.
Where things get more interesting is in signature abilities. You can equip two of these, and each of the game’s four weapons comes with innate skills too. The Boomstick flamethrower staff gave me access to a buffet of skills to set enemies on fire, dealing damage over time in a wide area.
It’s not the most defensive weapon, however, with no parries or blocking on offer. There’s always dodge roll to fall back on, thankfully, and skilful players will be able to avoid enemy attacks by abusing the dodge maneuver’s invincibility frames.
Boss enemies is where the combat began to really shine for me. The satisfying zerg of battering horde of goblins, minotaurs, mushrooms, and frogmen gives way to higher stakes, tasking players to be a bit more thoughtful and careful.
Boss enemy attacks will ask for more precise dodging, learning patterns, and managing cooldowns more aggressively. Once their stagger meter has depleted, going all out with your most powerful skills will net you an opportunity to take off huge chunks of health.
In exchange for two power bars, I can turn my Boomstick into a giant flamethrower burst, or imbue all of my attacks with fire damage for a brief window.
I suppose my issue is that, in the roughly 6~ hours I’ve put into Towerborne so far, those high stakes moments that got me really engaged were a bit few and far in between.
A question of variety and longevity
Towerborne’s map is divided hex-grid style like Civilization, and your custom-designed player avatar (more body types, please!) can explore any of these tiles at will.
The vast majority of the tiles are randomized discovery missions, which unlock the next tiles around them. These areas are perhaps similar to a Diablo 4 Nightmare Dungeon, which features familiar layouts with randomized enemies and events. And much like Diablo 4, I think they get a bit samey after a while.
Indeed, as of writing, I think Towerborne has a bit of a variety problem — but it is, of course, early access. So remember that as I write this.
Towerborne’s art style is charming and is reminiscent of Ori and the Blind Forest with parallax “living painting” style backgrounds. They’re pretty to look at the first few times, but after a while, you start recognizing the same hills, cliffs, and bridges. After doing the same biome 5-10 times, I started getting a bit fatigued.
Repetition is obviously a thing in all service-type games, and I think perhaps Towerborne could take the edge off the grind if the loot were a little more interesting.
In Towerborne, the items you get (at least so far) haven’t been particularly compelling enough to offset the sense of grind. At least in Diablo 4, you might end up with a powerful unique or a particularly well-rolled item that makes the 1000th plunge through Diablo 4’s Blind Burrows at least vaguely worth it.
Towerborne’s items don’t seem to roll for stats, and instead come in standardized tiers. Tier 1, 2, 3, and so on. Once I had a full 3-piece set of Tier 3, for example, I didn’t feel the need to really look at any of the gear and items that were dropping.
Diablo 4 also has the benefit of a AAA development team with a huge-budget story, complete with epic set pieces and photorealistic graphics. Towerborne doesn’t need that to offer something valuable to your “current game” list, though.
Levels in Towerborne take only 5-10 minutes to complete, designed for piecemeal consumption with a “just one more level…” hook. It worked on me very well for a while, until I realized the gear that was dropping started to feel a bit arbitrary, and that more structured story beats or set piece events were unlikely to be part of the experience — at least for now.
Indeed, Towerborne is very firmly in early access right now. It feels like what we have is the bones of an endgame that could be great, wrapped in a low-maintenance, relaxing title ideal for your Steam Deck, Xbox Cloud Gaming device, or even the future Xbox handheld.
Towering ambition, and it’s still early (access) days
Towerborne is an incredibly ambitious game in a sense. Taking on the aforementioned PvE free-to-play titans with a comparatively smaller team and budget, while also building on a genre that is typically associated with “retro” gaming, is a big, big task.
I desperately want Towerborne to maximize its potential because it’s absolutely clear that there’s a formula here that could really work, and grow into something truly special.
Without the production values, photorealism, and even voice acting seen in bigger budget titles, Towerborne absolutely needs to nail that sense of variety and meaningful itemization and progression — I’m not sure they’re quite there yet. The good news is that the combat is incredibly tight, and the underlying concept is very strong in my view.
I’m absolutely intrigued to see where Stoic takes Towerborne in the coming months as we head further into early access / Xbox Game Preview, when more fans are able to begin sending in their feedback.
Towerborne is available now in Steam Early Access with a Founder’s Pack, and launches on Xbox Game Preview and Xbox Game Pass on April 29, 2025.