It's been 10 years since the events of Streets of Rage 3, and Oak Wood City is only mildly safer than it once was. Having left the police force decades ago to embark on their tax-break vigilante careers, Axel Stone and Blaze Fielding have since retired from this hazardous moonlighting gig to live relatively normal, mundane lives.
But you know what never retires? Evil. And now the downtrodden metropolis faces a new threat in the form of the mysterious "Y" siblings: two privileged young psychopaths who are bringing death and destruction back to Oak Wood's rain-stained alleyways. With local law enforcement on the syndicate's payroll, there remains but one option: Axel and Blaze, accompanied by allies old and new, must return to the mean streets and rescue the burned-out 'berg the only way they know how: at the business end of a broken bottle.
Over 25 years since its last official entry, Streets of Rage is finally ready to make its long-awaited, highly anticipated return. The 16-bit era was an entire lifetime ago, and action games have advanced far beyond the traditional arcade brawlers of yore – is there even a place for Blaze and crew in the modern gaming age? You bet there is, Jack.
