Kusan: City of Wolves review — one-hit deaths, pixel art

Kusan: City of Wolves, developed by CIRCLEfromDOT and published by PQube, launched on July 30, 2026 for PC, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch and Xbox Series X|S. Price at release is $14.99 and estimated completion time is eight to 12 hours. A review key was provided by the publisher. The review reports the game enforces one-hit deaths for the player, offers no difficulty settings and applies grading after each cleared floor.

Players control Jin, a former soldier now working as a fixer, who must clear floors of enemies while protecting Haru, a white bunny revealed to be an artificial psion tied to a government program called Project Origin. Factions pursue Haru, including the Diamond Wolves, led by Colonel Hoban, a former officer connected to Jin’s past. The narrative includes playable flashbacks that depict Jin’s earlier military actions.

Gameplay is top-down and level-based. Each floor must be cleared of enemies to progress. The review notes bosses display health bars while the player character dies in a single hit, requiring pattern recognition, route planning and repeated attempts. After each floor the game issues a grade and a combo meter that rewards chained attacks and stylish play.

Jin starts with a combat prosthetic called the War Hand and a Quantum Knife and can unlock weapons and moves over time, including guns, crossbows and shotguns. Inventory uses a grid system that requires players to allocate space for gear and upgrades. Some inventory slots and upgrades are unlocked by solving Limbus puzzles that yield Limbus pieces; the review states some puzzles consume ammunition that is not always recovered, creating occasional resource constraints.

The review reports control responsiveness can feel stiff and that aiming issues sometimes cause avoidable deaths. Companion characters appear in limited sections and contribute minimally to combat. Fast restart times after death reduce downtime between attempts.

On presentation, the review highlights vivid pixel-art visuals, comic-book style cutscenes and a soundtrack with clear Korean influence. Technical performance on the reviewed PlayStation 5 build showed no major frame-rate drops or crashes during testing. The review characterizes the game as focused on frequent, high-risk encounters with limited hand-holding and persistent restart cycles.