Sony’s February 25 State of Play promised new game announcements and Sifu was one of the first to fulfill that promise. Sifu is a martial arts title from developer Sloclap, the same team behind 2017’s brawler Absolver. The game has no set release date or price point, but it will hit PS4, PS5, and PC at some undetermined point in 2021.
Sifu trailer brings platforms and gameplay but no release date
@Sloclap is excited to announce our new project: Sifu. A third person action game featuring intense hand-to-hand combat, it puts you in control of a young Kung-Fu student on a path of revenge. Coming on PS4, PS5 & PC in 2021 pic.twitter.com/0aEg5jOOfg
— SifuGame (@SifuGame) February 25, 2021
As per the above tweet from the game’s official Twitter account, the game is a third-person action game that lets players control a Kung-Fu student who is out for revenge. The trailer doesn’t have much in the way of direct storytelling, but has many gameplay scenes with fights reminiscent of action films like Oldboy and John Wick. The first fight in the green hallway seems like it was directly inspired by the a similar green hallway fight in Oldboy, which is widely regarded as one of the best hand-to-hand combat fights in cinema history.
The character goes through many environments from a dance club to a kitchen to a dojo and uses his environment to his advantage, like many popular action films. The game’s website even says that “careful positioning and clever use of the environment” is key to survival. He also seems to age and grow hair, implying that this journey may take quite some time. While developer Sloclap did not discuss the mechanics in detail, it looks like a natural progression from Absolver, which had similar melee mechanics.
The trailer also reveals that Sloclap got help from Sony Interactive Entertainment, Epic Games, and Kowloon Nights, a global investment fund. Sony and Epic’s involvement explain why the game wasn’t announced for Xbox platforms and probably means that it will be hitting the Epic Store first on PC. Sifu currently has a Epic Store page but not one on Steam.
