Stranger Than Heaven’s limb combat impresses at SGF

At Summer Game Fest, RGG Studio ran a 45-minute hands-on demo of Stranger Than Heaven that focused solely on combat. The session placed the player in three encounters of increasing difficulty and centered on a control scheme that maps the controller’s shoulder buttons and triggers to the protagonist’s limbs.

During fights, the left shoulder button and left trigger controlled the character’s left arm and leg, while the right shoulder button and right trigger controlled the right arm and leg. Players used those inputs to block, strike and time counters for specific limbs.

Standard enemies in the demo included a heavy brute and several attackers carrying bats. The demo’s enemies reacted when the player repeated actions: they blocked common combos and used feints to open counters, making predictable button-mashing less effective.

The reviewer reported difficulty with the dodge-and-counter timing at first but noted that the system became more intuitive after a few attempts. Combat encounters required choosing which limb to use and when to raise a specific side to block incoming attacks.

The final encounter was a one-on-one boss fight against an agile, lightly built opponent whose counters could end a round in two hits. The boss sometimes feigned vulnerability by kneeling after taking damage and then followed with a low attack aimed at the player’s legs. The hands-on account described the final encounter as ‘a genuinely thrilling preview of the game.’

The demo applied the limb-specific control only during combat; exploration and movement used conventional controls. The reviewer noted uncertainty about how bosses will be placed in the full game’s progression. The demo setting showed urban Japanese streets and included an unelaborated cameo by Tupac.

The session did not include broader story or world details beyond the combat demonstration.