A Total Knockout.
Initially revealed during a Nintendo Direct presentation this past February, I dismissed Knockout City almost instantly. The trailer just didn’t do it for me, and I had already seen the likes of Ninjala, Bleeding Edge, and Destruction AllStars each crash and burn, trying to find their way into an already crowded multiplayer space. With the title being available on Gamepass and EA Play, and of course a free trial for its first ten days of its release, I decided to at least pop in for a few rounds and see if it was any good. Those few rounds became hours, and those hours became days, illustrating to me that I was very wrong about Knockout City, and I am likely not the only one.
Combat Arena games often come and go. Hell, this isn’t even EA’s only one in the past year with Rocket Arena itself being not much more than an afternoon blip before it simply vanished from the conversation. Where many of these games suffer is usually through their combat, classes, and the rinse and repeat loop of needing a class-focused team to play with, often putting people into certain roles and needing that teamwork to well.. make the dream work. And, if you are at the mercy of joining with random players, then your experience is likely to suffer as a result. Thankfully, Knockout City doesn’t rely on classes, hell, it doesn’t really even have combat in the general sense. It’s a sports-infused game about high-flying dodgeball, with pinging the ball off someone’s dome feeling as addictive as anything else gaming has to offer.
While it’s impossible to tell the shelf life of what Knockout CIty will have, despite its day-one working crossplay and progression across all its available platforms, the game does a tremendous amount right that makes me think that while I don’t see it being a massive runaway success like something like Fallguys, I can see it becoming at least popular enough so that developer Velan Studios can continue to add to it, adding more maps, modes, and more customization items to deck out your would-be dodge-brawler. And, if the game is promoted enough and hits a certain audience on Twitch, or whathaveyou, then the game could see a very healthy community supporting it for years to come. As bad as the pun is, the ball is in EA’s court on how to take this franchise forward.
Knockout City is a three on three game of dodgeball, except that instead of two teams on each side of a do-not-cross line, you move freely around construction zones, rooftop battles, slimy sewers, busy streets, and a 50’s diner themed battleground. The levels are spacious, and one of the things I noticed about them right away, was that they never fell victim to spawn killing, which was one reason I simply stopped playing Bleeding Edge. Well, that and several other reasons that put me off the game entirely. Still, the levels are big enough that you can roam around to find approaching battles and small enough that you don’t have to roam far. There are key chokepoints and locations you’ll often find skirmishes, but I never found that battles would only exist in key locations. Often, most multiplayer games have levels that often never see use in their full size, making parts of each environment feel more like set dressing than serving a function. Here, levels feel tailor-made to get the most out of every square inch.
The titular dodge “balls” are found in specific locations around each arena, with each match being privy to a specialty ball. These unique dodge balls have gravity effects, explode, or can trap enemies into a caged ball for a quick toss over a cliff unless they slam down the escape button rapidly and try to distance themself away from your grasp. You and your fellow dodge-brawlers can also form into a ball themselves to be tossed, and should you hold down the button to charge your shot, you can perform a special attack that has you dropping like a missile from up top. As just mentioned, charging a shot is the key to dealing damage, as while you can instantly toss the ball, charging it gives it more speed, making it less likely they will have time to catch your shot and return it back to you, with interest. You can even fake a shot as well, making your target less inclined to know when you are about to launch it at them. You can also pass the ball to teammates, pre-charging it for a quick shot, making teamwork a crucial instance of reliability.
The speed at which matches flow is insane, with a series of rapid-fire shots, especially with the multi-ball, another one of your special dodge-balls, where you can easily lose track of where an incoming ball is coming from. Thankfully, you have a red border that appears around the screen to indicate such an incoming attack with a white marker that moves around said border, but you can also use a ball you are holding to bounce the incoming ball away from you. Each brawler can take only two hits before they are downed, with a quick 5 second revive that places you back in the action, but never IN the action, thankfully. You can also dodge and twirl, with the dodge allowing you to bounce a ball back towards its owner should you time it just right. While you can sprint, the dodge is a key ability that I often used to escape an incoming hit, or around corners should my attacker not use either the lob or curveball strike you’ll learn in your training.
While it’s important to know how to throw, catch, fake, or using your many avenues of mobility, it’s working as a team and overwhelming your foes where the real strategy of Knockout City comes into play. Running with a teammate to double strike at an opponent can often put them out of the game in a quick one-two punch, giving them no real chance to recover the ball or have the time to avoid that second quick hit, especially if one of your teammates comes at them with a devastating curveball, one they likely won’t see coming. Each environment also has jump pads, and in the case of the sewers, you have suction tubes that send you right to the other side of the map. While you can’t double jump, you do have a glider, so along with your dodge, jump, and twirl, you can really clear large gaps in no time, allowing you to come to the aid of a teammate, or sneaking up behind an unsuspecting target, dashing into them and bouncing them off a cliff.
Currently, Knockout City seems to have a rotation of events, and at the time of this review, the only new addition that I’ve come across is a mode where you only have your teammates to throw, as the map contains no actual dodge-balls. The game features, at present, 5 levels, as well as a group hub location where you can practice your drills, and customize your brawler. There is your standard 3 on 3 matches where you need to down ten players, a solo match for a little one on one (which seemed to have been removed from non-league play with the latest rotation of events), as well as a Diamonds Dash match that acts like a kill confirmed mode. There is also a mode where every ball is one of the special balls, but that mode isn’t as impressive as I’d of liked given, at least in the few matches of it I’ve played, only one special type is active at once, so getting the caged ball may be great for Rooftop Rumble, but it’s not as great on the more land-locked locations. Now, in promotional material for the game, there are screenshots of a team of four on top of a building, and the game does account for 4 different team colors, so it’s likely we will get modes that reflect this in the future.
Knockout City does feature a battle pass of sorts, called Street Rank, but there is no cost to work through it other than the time needed to be put in to access your rewards as you level up. The 100 tiers of rewards are randomized for each player, meaning you won’t get an idea of where a certain player is based on their rank, as in say something like Fortnite where if you see someone running around in a certain skin, you have more or less a good idea of their level. This keeps rewards fresh and allows the variety in cosmetics to run wild from player to player. I’ve seen someone wearing these holographic gloves that say “knock” on each fist that I want so dearly, but given my rewards are random, I’m not too sure where they will unlock for myself. While cosmetics are a big draw for your unlocks, you also have various holograms to unlock for your special attack, taunts, poses, and customizable effects for your crew, the game’s take on clans, which do max out at 32 players, sadly.
The game also features what they label as contracts, which are quick objectives like defeating opponents with a certain hit, or performing a number of hits that you’ll complete for bonus experience, or various other rewards, such as cash you can spend in the store. There are dailies to complete, career milestones, block party missions that are more co-op focused, and training missions that reward in-game cash. Now, while the game has either free access through something like Gamepass or EA Play, there are microtransactions here, but for some reason, I cannot access them as the bank has yet to connect for me since launch.
Now, when it comes to its visuals, there are things I really enjoy, and some that I’m still on the fence about. I like the cartoony style, and the designs of some of the outfits and gear items are very well done, but the ventriloquist dummy look to some of its faces, can almost come off as sheer horror, especially when you are downed and your character is dead-eye staring into the camera. Some faces escape this look to a certain extent, but there are only maybe 2-3 faces that I have unlocked that even look remotely suitable for my tastes. It’s a shame the game’s characters don’t match the personality of its 2D artwork more, but sometimes budget and artistic vision often clash. While the game is loaded with several musical tracks to make the pace of combat feel fluid and snappy, none of the music here is really that great, meaning you won’t have anything stuck in your head after a few hours of play.
I do find the presentation of the game to be decent enough, if a bit generic in most cases, but it’s the lack of certain things like an instant replay, kill cam, or even a play of the game type of presentation for it to really stand out in a game where some of the shots people can pull off are worth that second look. While there are stats for the match, they are hidden away in a menu in the post-game results that feel like they should be far more front and center. Hell, I didn’t even know they were there till I went looking for them.
Knockout City wasn’t a game I was looking forward to playing, let alone wrapping up a review on, but oddly enough, it hit just right to continue to keep my interest as I am still popping in for a few rounds each day. I’m sure when more of my friends jump in, and we get a crew going that I’ll be playing far more regularly, but for the time I spent with it, I can honestly say I had a blast with what the team has done here. I’m not entirely sold on the overall look the game has going for its characters, and some of the presentation elements need work, but the moment-to-moment gameplay is rock solid and highly addictive. With its five combat arenas really shining through with some clever ideas and variety, it can lead to some incredibly close matches where you are on the edge of your seat. I can’t say how long Knockout City will remain loaded with players, but I can say for now that it is certainly worth your time, and with services like Game Pass and EA Play, it is easily within your reach.
Developer - Velan Studios. Publisher - EA/ EA Originals. Released - May 21st 2021. Available On - Xbox One, Series X/S, PlayStation 4/5, Nintendo Switch, Windows. Rated - (E-10+) Fantasy Violence.
Platform Reviewed - Xbox Series X. (There is currently no native next gen version) Review Access - Knockout City was downloaded off of Game Pass by the reviewer.