Arson and Plunder: Unleashed

Arson and Plunder: Unleashed is a throwback beat ’em up from Chainsaw Syndicate that wears its 90s arcade roots proudly. You play as either an orc or an elf, hacking through waves of enemies in a fantasy world where two ancient rivals have been forced into an uneasy truce. The hook isn’t complicated: it’s a straightforward brawler built for chaos, humor, and the simple pleasure of clearing a screen full of bad guys with a friend at your side.

How it plays

The setup is classic side-scrolling beat ’em up: you walk into an area, enemies pour in, and you fight until the screen clears. Story mode strings together over 25 missions across five difficulty levels, following Tinargey Arson, an elf skilled in fire magic, and Vrok Plunder, an orc berserker who solves most problems with an axe. You can swap between the two characters as you play, which keeps the combat from feeling one-note since each brings a different rhythm to how you clear a room. The plot, about elves and orcs teaming up against invading human loggers, is played for laughs rather than high fantasy drama, and the 2D art style leans into that tone. Beyond the campaign, there’s a co-op mode that lets you build a squad of up to four players to tear through the game’s absurd set pieces together, and an Endless mode that drops you into a dungeon to see how long you can survive against an ever-growing swarm of enemies. It’s a game built around one core loop, punching and slashing through crowds, but it offers a handful of different ways to engage with that loop depending on whether you want structure, chaos, or a friend group along for the ride.

Who it’s for

This one is aimed squarely at people who grew up on coin-op brawlers like Streets of Rage or Golden Axe and miss that specific feeling of mashing through enemy lines with a buddy on the couch or online. If you like games with a light, joke-forward story and don’t need deep systems to stay engaged, the orc-and-elf dynamic and the humor baked into the mission design should land well. It’s also a decent pick if you’re specifically hunting for local or online co-op brawlers, since a lot of modern indie action games skip multiplayer entirely. On the other hand, if you want tight, technical combat with combo systems and skill trees, or you generally bounce off older-feeling genre conventions, this isn’t going to change your mind. It’s a game that knows exactly what it is and doesn’t pretend to be more.

Is it worth grabbing?

For what it costs to add to your library, there’s very little reason not to grab it, especially if beat ’em ups are a genre you return to now and then. It’s not going to be anyone’s game of the year, but it’s the kind of title that earns its spot for a couch co-op night or a low-stakes solo session when you want something you can pick up without reading a manual. Fans of old-school brawlers and people building out a co-op library with friends will get the most mileage out of it. If the genre has never clicked for you, this particular entry isn’t likely to be the one that converts you, but the price of entry makes it an easy bet either way.

Quick facts

Genre: Action, Indie. Developer and publisher: Chainsaw Syndicate. Platform: PC (Steam). Release date: September 25, 2015.