Stranger Than Heaven preview: innovative two-handed combat shines

Stranger Than Heaven keeps piling on surprises: it spans five eras, features Snoop Dogg in a starring role and even includes a Tupac cameo. The standout, though, is a new, brutal approach to combat that departs from what fans expect of the developer’s prior work.

Combat centers on real-time brawls and 13 weapon types; my hands-on demo let me try fists, a knife and a heavy crowbar. Each hand is controlled independently—the left side of the controller for the left hand, the right for the right—with bumpers for light attacks and triggers for heavy ones.

Holding a button powers up moves, and the same two-handed logic applies to blocking: you can hold to guard, block left or right, and time a match to pull off a parry, all while managing a stamina meter. The lack of lock-on made some early encounters tricky, especially when enemies attacked from offscreen.

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