Kusan: City of Wolves is the newest title developed by CIRCLEfromDOT, an independent studio based in South-Korea, and published by PQube. Dubbed a “high-octane hardcore top-down shooter”, you play as Jin, a former panther soldier turned fixer who solves problems in a dystopian, crime-ridden city. During one of his routine jobs, he gets caught up in a dark conspiracy involving the government, his former war comrades, and a mysterious rabbit with Psi powers.
Disclaimer: A review copy for Kusan: City of Wolves was provided by PQube. The game was played on PlayStation 5.
First things first. Players familiar with games such as Hotline Miami or OTXO will probably draw comparisons to those. In our case, neither of us has played either game, or similar games for that matter. We want to make this clear because our lack of experience with similar titles allowed us to review Kusan on its own merits instead of constantly comparing it to other games in the genre.
With that out of the way, let’s return to Kusan, a game that left a really strong first impression.
Setting and Presentation
While the gameplay is undoubtedly the main selling point of Kusan: City of Wolves, it is complemented by a compelling story. The narrative unfolds between scenes and chapters through beautifully illustrated and stylish comic-book panels and speech bubbles. These aren’t just static images, either, but subtly animated stripes enhanced with sound effects for that extra “umph” where needed.
Jin himself is a likeable protagonist, and Kusan reminded me of the Blacksad comic series, which also features a trigger-happy feline investigator with a troubled past. The city of Kusan exudes a heavy neo-noir atmosphere, where vibrant neon lights are overshadowed by the brutal and gruesome violence and decadence lurking around every corner.
What truly sets the mood, though, is the soundtrack. In a high-paced action game, music can make or break the experience, and the developers absolutely nailed it here. The beats are so good that they often made me throw caution to the wind and charge in guns blazing, simply because the music made it feel right. Needless to say, such careless approach led to many restarts, but the satisfactory feeling was absolutely worth it.
During regular gameplay, the presentation shifts to a top-down perspective that gives you a clear overview of large portions of each floor, including enemy positioning inside adjacent, closed-off rooms. The game incorporates a light pixel-art element to its aesthetics here, but both the environments and enemy designs remain incredibly detailed and colorful.
The visuals also perfectly complement the brutal setting and action-packed gameplay. Defeated enemies leave behind massive blood splatters, and nearly every object in the environment can be smashed apart with a well-placed punch. Better yet, the destruction remains visible throughout the stage. A room may look orderly before Jin enters, but by the time he’s finished cleaning house, it’s nothing short of complete chaos.
Gameplay
The developers weren’t exaggerating when they described their game as “high-octane”. As a fixer, Jin spends most of his time violently dispatching hordes of anthropomorphic gangsters and criminals. His primary weapon is the War Hand, a prosthetic arm that lets him pummel enemies and parry incoming attacks. He also carries the Quantum Knife, an auto-targeting blade that’s perfect for dealing with enemies at mid-range. Both weapons are versatile and can be upgraded. For example, the War Hand can eventually charge up devastating attacks or reflect bullets back at enemies. In addition, Jin can unlock various ranged weapons such as a pistol, crossbow, and shotgun.
We personally enjoyed picking targets with the Quantum Knife. With the right upgrades, it becomes a deadly boomerang that you can kick mid-flight before instantly recalling it with proper timing. Combined with the War Hand for quickly eliminating melee enemies, it creates a devastating – and extremely satisfying – combo.
All weapons and upgrades can be purchased from Jin’s weapon handler, the sophisticated reindeer Nimo. Every weapon and upgrade occupies valuable inventory space, however, and expanding that inventory requires resources collected during missions. Since you won’t be able to equip everything at once, the game introduces a surprisingly meaningful inventory management system.
It is a mechanic that works remarkably well because the upgrades are rarely obvious choices. Most of themfeel impactful enough that deciding what to bring into the next mission becomes genuinely interesting. We focused on upgrading the Quantum Knife, while mainly using the War Hand for its charged attack and keeping the pistol as a backup whenever we got outnumbered. We played around with other ranged weapons, too, and they all seem to have their uses and reason for being in the game.
Upgrades can also be “optimized” using currency, reducing the amoung of space they occupy and allowing for even more customization.
With the exception of bosses, everything in Kusan: City of Wolves dies in a single hit – including Jin himself. Charging headfirst into a room is almost guaranteed to get you killed since enemies vastly outnumber you. Instead, every level asks you to carefully plan your approach and determine the most efficient order in which to eliminate your targets.
This can lead to intense and satisfying action sequences: kicking open a door, smashing a knife-wielding goon, throwing your Quantum Knife into a gunman across the room, catching another enemy while recalling the blade, then finishing off the last mech-dog with a well-placed pistol shot before moving on to the next room.
Death is frequent, but restarts are almost instantaneous, keeping the action flowing without frustration. It’s obvious the developers clearly wanted to capture the feeling of a “John Wick” action sequence, something reinforced by numerous easter eggs both in-game and in the trophy list.
Enemy placement can be quite devious sometimes. You may rush a melee enemy only to get sniped by a gunman hidden behind scenery or flattened by a charging mech bull. Each level essentially becomes a puzzle where success depends on finding the optimal order of elimination, while also executing your plan flawlessly. Of course, your preferred loadout naturally affects your strategy. Players comfortable with parrying bullets and relying on melee combat may approach encounters very differently from those who lean more heavily on ranged weapons. You can even use the environment to your advantage: Boxes and other objects can be punched into enemies for creative kills, or used as cover to break an enemy’s line of sight.
That said, the visual clarity occasionally struggles under the sheer amount of action happening on screen. The choice of colors can sometimes become overwhelming, making certain enemies blend into the environment more than they probably should. It’s not a major complaint mainly because repeated attempts naturally teach you enemy placements, but it does lead to occasional tria-and-error deaths that feel slightly cheap rather than deserved. Kusan is a tough and punishing game, and rooms are sometimes really tough to read. This is the one area that we feel could use some improving.
Finally, let’s talk about bosses.
They are big, they are mean, and take an absourd amount of hits before going down – all while Jin still gets demolished in one single hit. They provide quite some challenge, but are also really enjoyable to fight – and once again, the phenomenal soundtrack plays a big role in this. While not abundant, these fights aren’t scared of trying something new and switching regular gameplay for unique sequences. We won’t go into spoiler territory here, but these sections really took us by surprise. The showdown against the final boss is a climactic experience, and a really tough fight, too!
And although boss attack patterns can appear somewhat unpredictable at first, they are well telegraphed if you pay attention, so that we never felt cheated out of a victory. Every death could be traced back to not paying enough attention and our own mistakes, rather than design flaws. The story also helps here: If you do follow it and have become invested in the narrative, you’ll have even more motivation to want to kick their asses.
At the end of every floor, you’re graded based on various factors such as completion time, style points, or combo performance. Picking your enemies one by one while moving carefully might be safe, but results in mediocre scores. Successfully chaining kills as fast as possible without dropping a combo earns significantly higher grades. The game encourages replayability this way, challenging you to get the highest score possible. If you are aiming at earning Kusan‘s platinum trophy, you’ll even have to chase the coveted SS rank on every floor! Otherwise, it took each of us roughly 7 hours to reach the ending, so chasing those SS ranks will definitely increase your playtime in a meaningful way!
The only aspect that left us somewhat confused was the style meter, an element reminiscent of games like Devil May Cry or Hi-Fi Rush. Your first kill in the level puts you at Commander level, after which it can increase further to Beast and Assassin. However, it also decays if too much time passes without kills or dealing damage. Sometimes we’d chain together creative kills but the style meter would still deplete. Other times the style meter would get stuck on a random rank for no apparent reason. Perhaps we’ll eventually figure out how it works exactly, but for now, it remains one gameplay mechanic that feels like it doesn’t work as intended.
The Platinum Trophy
The trophy list for this Kusan: City of Wolves is relatively straightforward. Most trophies on the list unlock naturally simply by playing and finishing the game: whether that’s defeating enough enemies, firing enough bullets, or even dying often enough.
You’ll also have to find and free all 12 Limbus, which are short puzzles that award you with a very rare currency required for inventory optimization and expansion. While the first ones are in plain sight, many are hidden, but Jin has access to an upgrade that shows their location if you are close to one.
The one standout-challenge is earning an SS rank on every single floor in the game. While this might sound intimidating at first (and it certainly is), the game includes chapter select, and already played chapters can be replayed with your currently unlocked weapons and upgrades available. We recommend simply enjoying your first playthrough, then returning with a fully expanded inventory, all available upgrades, and a much better understanding of the game’s mechanics. That second run should make chasing those elusive SS ranks far less daunting!
