Prerelease:Streets of Rage 4
This page details prerelease information and/or media for Streets of Rage 4.
Despite the launch day prototype not being properly documented as of yet, it's possible to follow some of the game's development history and notice several changes through the official trailers and demo gameplays available on YouTube.
Contents
Trailers
2018
Reveal Trailer
Uploaded 8/27/2018 on Dotemu's channel.
The game is clearly in an earlier stage of development, and while it has at best 5 seconds of gameplay, it has some noticeable changes from the final game:
- Dynamic lighting on characters and objects wasn't implemented yet.
- A telephone booth appears right at the start of Stage 1.
- Nora is featured as a regular enemy on Stage 1. In the final version, she is promoted to boss status.
- Stage 2 (Police Precinct) in general, has fewer details and the cop enemies are nowhere to be seen.
2019
Gameplay Trailer
Uploaded 3/26/2019 on Dotemu's channel.
Features a music track that does not exist in the final game at all. According to Olivier Derivière, it was just some kind of placeholder for the trailer that wasn't intended to be used on the game, since Yuzo Koshiro didn't finish composing "They're Back". He would later share said music on Twitter.
Here is a rough translation of Olivier Derivière's comment on it: "When I composed that, I was waiting for Yuzo Koshiro's track, so [meanwhile] I put that one, which was only an "R&D" track in my mind. I didn't intend to finish it, I was rather trying new things."
There are also some other things to point out:
- The telephone booth from the reveal trailer was changed to a trash bin here.
- Similar to the previous trailer, the stages have fewer details when compared to the final game. Notably, Stage 5 (The Underground) lacks graffiti on the pipes and Stage 4 (the Old Pier) lacks the enemies fighting against each other in the background.
- Once again, Nora shows around like a common enemy, this may imply that the decision to make her a boss character was something made rather late in development.
- Cherry and Floyd's silhouettes are revealed at the end, however, Floyd's silhouette has a different design on the arms, which closely resembles one of his concept arts.
Adam Hunter Trailer
Uploaded 12/10/2019 on Dotemu's channel.
The game looks more finished and detailed, and a lot of the enemy's placement matches with the final game. However, there are also some minor things worth pointing out:
- Right at the start, Nora performs a combo on Axel while covered by electricity. This was later given to one of her variants.
- On Stage 9 (Y Tower), during the elevator section there is a Star Move pickup on the floor. It was removed in the final game.
- DJ K-Washi, Stage's 10 boss, is absent from his arena, which also has a purple light ambiance different from the pure white lighting of the final game.
- Adam is (likely) mute during his Star Move at the end.
- Adam's introduction animation, while looking more or less the same, has a small difference here, he knocks out a bunch of regular street punks instead of the police officers. It's possible that the original context of when he was going to appear changed during development. Right below are the images for ease of comparison.
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2020
Launch Trailer
Uploaded 04/30/2020 on Dotemu's channel.
The game is pretty much finished here, but Axel's voice during his Star Move near the end of the trailer sounds a lot different from the final game.
Also, Shiva is featured with a different piece of artwork at the end.
Pre-Release Footage
Bitsummit 2019
Offscreen footage of a demo played at Japan's Bitsummit 2019. Unfortunately, the recording has a lot of noise and random chatter from the event, so it's possible that it also featured different music.
- Both Axel and Blaze use their classic voices from previous games, as placeholders. The same goes for some sound effects.
- Around 2:00 a weird thing happens, the zoom and dramatic slowdown effect that happens right after when you defeat a boss is triggered after defeating a random Galsia. Despite that, the game resumes as normal.
- Koobo isn't in the game yet, instead, Big Ben is used as a placeholder mini-boss.
Pax West 2019
A demo was featured on the Pax West 2019, which was made at the time to showcase the newcomer, Cherry Hunter, and Stage 6 (Chinatown).
- Most characters are lacking a lot of sound effects and voices, most notably Blaze, who is completely mute, aside from her classic voice being used for when she loses a life.
- Throughout the gameplay, one of the first things to notice is that we can hear two different music tracks for Stage 1 that aren't in the final game. These were both composed by Olivier Derivière as he confirmed in a Tweet, by saying "Yes! It's one of my own". The second track that plays after the car crash was repurposed for the Level Select and was later added to the game files in an update.
- Koobo is now featured as the first stage mini-boss, however, he is completely devoid of any sound effects and voice lines.
- On the second area of Stage 1, there is a wooden box right at the start, which takes 3 hits to get destroyed. In the final game, these boxes only appear on the boss arena and break on a single hit.
- In the kitchen area of Stage 6, there is an explosive barrel that was removed in the final game.
- Shiva's Dojo has only 2 rooms, in the final game it has 3. Also, the room where you fight the Muai Thay dudes in the final game looks a lot more simple on this Demo and features two Goros at the start instead.
- On Shiva's boss fight arena, he can be seen right at the start. In the final game, you need to walk a bit more to see him.
- There is no boss music or stage clear theme. The current stage music just keeps playing.
Pax East 2020
Another demo. Featured on the Pax East 2020 (February 27 – March 1), some months near the game's release.
- Blaze's voice is almost completely different from the final game.
- Enemies have more variety in the defeated voice sounds and are louder in general.
- Big Ben is mute during his laugh.
- Floyd is mute during his Star Move.
- Shiva is lacking some voice lines.
Music
This music was used in the first gameplay trailer uploaded on March 26 2019 by Dotemu. Olivier Derivière shared the full piece around 2022 on his Twitter. According to him, this theme was just a temporary track for development purposes and was never intended to be part of the game.
