The upcoming release ofDouble Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragonsis a surprise resurgence for one of the most noteworthy and long-running series in the beat ‘em up genre, allowing it to join other contemporaries such asStreets of RageandRiver Cityin receiving a modern update. One of the more surprising aspects of the game, which has traditionally focused on brothers Billy and Jimmy Lee, is thatDouble Dragon Gaidenwill feature 13 unique playable characters and non-linear progression similar to the recentRiver City Girlsseries. To determine how the game is shaping up to stand toe to toe with other recent beat ‘em ups likeStreets of Rage 4, Game Rant sat down with lead developer Raymond Teo of Secret Base.
With Teo’s prior gameStreets of Red,he had his first discussions with Arc System Works, which would eventually prove fruitful in helping the studio land the development duties ofthe nextDouble Dragontitle. In our interview with Teo, he provides insight as to how his studio is handling the development of the newest entry in such an important and landmark franchise in gaming’s long history.The following transcript has been edited and brevity and clarity.
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Q: Could you tell me a little bit about your history in game development and how it led you to this point where you’re working on a pretty well-known and beloved franchise?
After working on that for a while, the Singapore government actually started to encourage people to do indie games, which was a new concept at the time. You know, they were giving out some government grants to kickstart anybody who wanted to actually make games themselves. I was very interested, so I gave it a shot and started off with Flash games. Eventually, I was making a game forXbox Live indie games. That was quite some time ago.
I then brought that game over to Steam, that game wasTobe’s Vertical Adventure, one of my earliest games. One thing led to another and many years down the road, I was making this zombie beat ‘em-up calledStreets of Red. I worked on that game at, I think, the same time that Arc System Works was looking for indie games to publish. They reached out to see if maybe they could bring the game over to consoles, but we were already working with somebody else. So, that didn’t pan out.
A few more years down the road, I read that they had acquired theDouble DragonIP. They had actually just releasedDouble Dragon 4. It used a very classic formula, so I thought, ‘Hey, if you had just made that, maybe you might be interested to take the game in a different direction." I reached out to them again and shared my ideas, made my pitch, and it took some convincing. But after a year or so, they finally gave us the go-ahead to work on it.
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Q: When given the keys to this franchise, were there elements in theDouble Dragonfranchise that you felt were crucial to maintain and preserve, while innovating on it?
Teo:There were many parts. It was rather hard to break down all the different parts of the game and decide which ones you need to preserve and which you need to improve.Double Dragonwas sort of the real start of the beat ‘em up genre, so a lot of later games took what was done there and built upon it already.
When I started work on the game, one of the first things I did was compareDouble Dragon, be itthe NES versionor the classic arcade version, and compare it to all the other beat ‘em up games in the 90s and the modern ones to see what the differences are.
One of the things we came up with was the way combat feels. You know, it feels a little bit heavier, and the game has a lot more environment and terrain when you move up and down locations and things like that. We got to look at that and say, ‘hey, we want to bring that in!’
A slower, heavier combat might not interest gamers as much these days, but how do we still bring that in and maintain a fast-paced combat, while at the same time giving it more weight?
We’d end up saying things like, ‘There’s not as much commitment if you were to perfect a certain move that’s faster, quicker, and deals less damage.’ A better example is if you were to perform a jump, you will land quickly and recover quickly. If you do a double jump, you will actually land in a landing state, which holds you for a bit longer. You have to actually be a little bit more careful about your decisions, especially big decisions.
At the same time, we give you fast-paced action. You can cancel your action if you have a special move, all that kinds of stuff, so there’s some balancing with those decisions.
Q: Were there any restraints that you had to work under in developing this game from the Double Dragon IP holder?
Teo:Yeah, I mean, I think the main thing was the lore.Arc System Workshas been very generous in terms of the creativity that they allow us. They don’t limit us in terms of gameplay or anything like that, but they do want to ensure that the lore is held to a certain level of consistency. For example, the hair color and clothing for Billy and Jimmy have to be accurate. Of course, personalities, storylines, and other stuff are where they came in and tried to ensure we followed a certain path.
When we first started, there was actually this question of whether we wanted this to beDouble Dragon 5orDouble Dragon 0. For the longest time, it was actually a bit of a problem because we couldn’t quite figure out how to keep the lore consistent with the established storyline and still have the characters that we wanted to appear in the game altogether. There just wasn’t a very good way to do it without breaking the storyline somehow. Eventually, they actually gave us the idea, they suggested that we make this aDouble Dragon Gaiden.
In this case, we were able to tell the story from the very beginning, that’s what we wanted, and at the same time, we’re free to make a few modifications here and there, telling the story we wanted to tell and still have all these characters coming back. That was actually them giving us even more freedom to play around with the game.
Q: With nonlinear progression and other features like cash, were games likeRiver City Ransomor other titles particularly influential onDouble Dragon Gaiden?
Teo:When I first came up with the idea, I did research notjust onDouble Dragonbut a lot of ’80s, ’90s beat ‘em ups. I tried to give as much as I could get my hands on a go. What I did was attempt to break down the gameplay and repackage it into, you know, a more complete package for the player. So, in our game, you have this thing where you earn cash.
If you do well, you can earn more cash, and you can spend some of that cash to revive if you have to. If you look at arcade games, even back then, there are some games that would give you a one-up if you get a certain amount of score. That was actually a mechanic I looked at and said, ‘hey, that’s what this old gameplay is about.’ I think only the more experienced player really got into it and got that, so the question was how do we now make it a fuller system for players to really get into? From thereon, I fleshed it out and it became what it is now.
A lot of the mechanics, this is just one of the examples, are taken from all of these old games and how that experience used to be. I see how I can re-evoke that emotion from the players. It’s also the idea of how much money you bring to the arcade when you play games. If today, I brought five bucks and that gave me like five chances to play the game, it’s game over when you spend them all. That’s where the idea came from and pushing it to become a more wholesome feature for modern players.
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Q: On the nonlinear progression, you pick a level and it seems the remaining levels become more difficult based on your various buffs. What went into that design decision? It’s unique for aDouble Dragongame, so where did that idea come from?
Teo:Actually, I can’t quite remember now. It was something I tried inStreets of Red, but of course, this version is upgraded from all the lessons I learned back then. I took those and apply them here as well.
It really has to do with replayability. I understand with past beat ‘em up games, like in our memory, those games lasted for quite a while. In truth though, a lot of these games were less than 60 minutes, then you replay them again and again and again. This time around, I wanted to make sure that when you replay the game, there are different things that you can explore and alternate routes.
With each run, the players can actually change to a different character or combination of characters. They can explore different routes. Each time they play, they will see different things that enhance the experience and keep them gaming.
Q: For the returning characters, what went into the decision process in selecting which characters you bring into this entry?
Teo:That’s much easier to answer. For me, I always wanted to do it as aDouble DragonAll-Star Experience. I looked at the games in the mainline series andReturn of the Double Dragonon the SNES, and I picked out some of the most recognizable characters.
The game was also very muchinspired byThe Warriors, the classic movie, so I knew there were going to be gangs. So, hey, if we’re going to have gangs, why don’t we fit them intoDouble Dragon 1will have a gang,Double Dragon 2,Double Dragon 3, and so on. That easily allowed me to naturally fit in these characters.
Q: How did you approach developing the move sets in the game? How did you balance giving players a variety of movies, while also not overwhelming them?
Teo:I think the main thing is to keep the concept simple. Nowadays, there are games where you have a light attack button, a heavy attack button, a special attack button, and if you use a combination of light to heavy to special, it does different things. That was a bit hard. With older games, one of the nice things is how simplistic they are. Like, after a hard day of work, you come home, you play the game, and you de-stress. I don’t want to add more stress to that, so I kept trying to keep things simple.
If you press a different direction with a special button, you can perform different special moves. I think that can be relatively easy for a player to manage. I think, in most cases, we would have looked at the archetypes of characters that we want and said the small characters are fast, the medium character has medium speed, the heavy guys are a bit slower, and then for zoners, you have rushes. So on and so forth. The only difference is that now we have to fit in the characters that we want in the game, so that can mess with the archetype a little bit. Because for example, you have Burnov and Abobo, and that’s immediately two big characters that ruin the balance, right?
In order to make that work, we also refer to some of the history of the games. We looked at the comics, the cartoons, the movie, and the fighting games, and see what iteration of those characters has been done before. In the case of Burnov and Abobo, there was an iteration of Burnov in the fighting game where he’s a bit of a big, but agile character. So I tried to see ‘okay, how can I bring some of that identity into him in this game, so you still have that attachment?’ But at the same time, there’s a difference between Burnov and Abobo, and I apply that approach to the rest of the characters as well.
Q: Double Dragon stories have been all over the place. Without spoiling anything, could you speak to how extreme this story is and what it was like coming up with the story?
Teo:I think, in comparison, this one might be the most grounded one. In the sense, that even inthe classicDouble Dragon, most of us remember Billy and Jimmy going to rescue Marian, who got kidnapped, but the reason why she got kidnapped is because Willy wanted them to learn Kung Fu or something. It was very 80s, it was like a lot of Hong Kong movies that have that backstory. It’s a little bit hard to tell someone in 2023, you know, that that’s a thing.
We downplay that and have a heavier emphasis on the original inspiration, which wasThe Warriorsmovie. Now, we play a little more into gang identity in the city, there are different gangs and each of them have a different look, and you’re going around the city to find them. I think that is more attractive for the new generation, I hope.
Q: Co-op is obviously a big part of the franchise, but there’s also a mechanic where, even when playing single-player, you can bring in your partner. What went into designing that component?
Teo:That was one of the earliest ideas that I had. It was already in there when I pitched it to Arc System Works, and this is where the benefits of making previous Beat ‘Em Up games come in. I found everybody expects the game to only be fun with a friend, but I played beat ‘em ups by myself sometimes, especially as a kid. I wanted to makea Beat ‘Em Up that’s funwhen you are playing alone.
Another reason is because I was looking at the words “Double Dragon” back then. There are two characters, two players, but I wanted to look at it today and see how I could take the words “Double Dragon” and put a new spin on it. Then, that also ties in with the mechanic I came up with, and it was a good solution for solo players. It was a great fit, and we ran with it.
Q: Beat ‘Em Ups are not the biggest genre, but they definitely have their followers. What would you say putsDouble Dragon Gaidenover other Beat ‘Em Up games?
Teo:I think, in recent years, we have seen a lot of very impressive classics resurface. They’re not remakes, maybe it’s a sequel or a new iteration on the classic, but the approach is mostly putting the original out, but doing a mega-polished version of it, which I thoroughly enjoy. For us, though, we are doing a rather different approach. We are taking the original material and seeing how we can re-interpret it.
A lot of different games play on injecting new ideas into it, yet they try to evoke the same kind of emotions. In that sense, I thinkDouble Dragon Gaidenis a very different experience. If you have already tried some of those others, I think this one brings something new to you. If you have not tried those, this might be something that’s interesting to you.
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Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragonsreleases on July 27 for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
