Tribute Games’ demo for Scott Pilgrim EX is a confident, colorful declaration of intent: this isn’t a nostalgia trip — it’s the beat ’em up evolution that fans and newcomers alike have been waiting for.
Two missions in and I’m already clearing my calendar for March 3.
Disclosure: I was given a complimentary review key to facilitate this review. Receiving it did not impact my assessment.I was cautiously excited about Scott Pilgrim EX. The original Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game holds a special place in my heart — and in the hearts of an entire generation of beat ’em up fans — but that game also came out in 2010, and the genre has leveled up considerably since then. Shredder’s Revenge, Streets of Rage 4, River City Girls — the bar is higher now, and simply replicating the charm of the Ubisoft original wouldn’t cut it anymore. So when the Steam demo dropped on Valentine’s Day ahead of Steam Next Fest, I jumped in with a mix of genuine hope and tempered expectations. Two missions later, those expectations had been thoroughly demolished. By my fists, specifically.
Familiar Fists, Fresh Structure
The first thing that hits you — after the absolutely gorgeous pixel art and the unmistakable wave of Anamanaguchi’s chiptuned brilliance washing over the title screen — is how immediately good Scott Pilgrim EX feels to play. If you’ve spent any time with TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge, this will feel like home. That’s no coincidence: Tribute Games built EX in the same engine as their celebrated Turtles game, and the core leadership includes Jonathan Lavigne, Jean-Francois Major, and Stéphane Boutin — former Ubisoft developers who worked on the first Scott Pilgrim game back in 2010. The pedigree runs deep, and it shows in every frame.
The demo offers four of the full game’s seven playable characters: Scott Pilgrim, the dependable all-rounder; Ramona Flowers, described as the magic-user with juggling combos and stylish flair; Lucas Lee, the hulking Hollywood ex who weaponizes his skateboard with gleeful brutality; and Roxie Richter, a half-ninja speed demon armed with a sword, smoke bombs, and the kind of kit that turns her into a blender on the battlefield. I played through with all four across multiple runs, and the character differentiation is immediately apparent. Scott is approachable and versatile — the obvious entry point. But Roxie’s frantic pace and Lucas’s grappling-focused brute force feel like entirely different games. This bodes well for the full roster, which adds Matthew Patel, Robot-01, and a still-unrevealed seventh fighter.
But the biggest surprise isn’t the combat — it’s the structure. Scott Pilgrim EX is not a traditional left-to-right beat ’em up. Instead of barreling through linear stages toward a boss, the demo drops you into a sprawling, interconnected map of Toronto (set in the delightfully ominous “20XX”) and lets you navigate freely. You select missions from a hub, explore areas in multiple directions, stop at shops to heal and equip items, and pick up side quests from NPCs scattered around the city. It’s openly inspired by River City Ransom, and the shift from linear corridors to open exploration is a genuine breath of fresh air for the genre. In the demo’s two missions, I was already backtracking through areas, discovering shortcuts, and stumbling into optional encounters that felt organic rather than scripted.
Punching Above Its Weight Class
The combat itself is immediate, crunchy, and satisfying in that specific way Tribute Games has mastered. Button mashing will get you through, but there’s clearly a deeper system underneath — each character has an expansive combo tree that rewards experimentation, and the game seems balanced to accommodate both casual mashers and players who want to learn precise strings. Environmental interactivity adds a welcome layer of chaos: baseball bats, demonic rods, turnips, and various other objects can be picked up and hurled at enemies, and during one encounter, Green Shells straight out of Mario Kart littered the arena, creating a hilariously hazardous minefield.
The badge system — where collected badges enhance stats and grant special bonuses — is only lightly touched in the demo, but it hints at a meaningful progression layer. Rather than the traditional leveling system of the original game, EX encourages experimenting with different badge loadouts to customize your fighter. Combined with the non-linear exploration, it gives the impression that Tribute Games is building something with genuine depth and replayability, not just a flashy arcade run you’ll clear in an afternoon.
The enemies in the demo span all three of Toronto’s rival gangs — the Vegans, the Robots, and the Demons — and the variety is already encouraging. Each faction has distinct visual identities and attack patterns, and the demo’s climactic encounter against Robo Scott (Metal Scott, in a very deliberate Sonic CD nod that the game wears proudly) served as a properly challenging boss fight that demanded positioning, dodging, and strategic use of available weapons. Playing co-op, the final fight came down to two of us with slivers of health, carefully dodging and throwing objects from range — it was tense, genuinely exciting, and exactly the kind of moment that makes this genre sing.
A Love Letter Written in Pixel Art
Visually, Scott Pilgrim EX is a feast. The pixel art, overseen by the legendary Paul Robertson, is vibrant, expressive, and packed with personality. Roxie’s facial expressions shift subtly mid-combo, smear frames add punch to every attack, and the environments burst with the kind of video game references that reward attention. Checkpoint gates ripped from Sonic. NES controller terminals. Typography that feels pulled straight from O’Malley’s graphic novels. It’s a game that knows its audience and delights in speaking their language.
Some early criticism has suggested the art style feels flatter than the original — the foreground and background lacking the depth illusion of the 2010 game — and I can see where that impression comes from, though it didn’t bother me in practice. The clarity of the action, the readability of enemy attacks, and the sheer volume of on-screen chaos running smoothly more than compensated.
And then there’s the music. Anamanaguchi’s return is not just welcome — it’s transformative. Their new compositions carry the same electric energy that made the original game’s soundtrack iconic, but with a confidence and polish that reflects a decade of growth. Even in the demo’s limited scope, the music elevated every brawl, every exploration moment, every quiet second between fights where I was just wandering Toronto’s streets and soaking in the atmosphere. It’s the kind of soundtrack that makes you want to keep playing even when you have no reason to.
What I Want to See More Of
Two missions is a taste, not a meal — and the demo is smart enough to leave you hungry. The story, co-written by Bryan Lee O’Malley himself (in what he describes as neither a sequel nor a spin-off, but an entirely new adventure), is only hinted at here. Sex Bob-omb has been kidnapped, their instruments stolen, and three gangs have carved Toronto into fiefdoms. The full game promises time travel, fractured realities, and encounters with both new and iconic characters. There’s also a tie-in prequel comic, Scott Pilgrim EX: Dawn of Metal Scott, already released, which suggests the narrative ambitions extend well beyond what a beat ’em up typically attempts.
The side quest structure is promising but still opaque — the demo’s one side quest was a simple timed combat challenge, and I’m hoping the full game pushes these further with more variety and narrative flavor. Online co-op wasn’t available in the demo (local co-op worked flawlessly), and testing that will be crucial given how central the four-player experience is to EX’s appeal. And while the badge system shows potential, two missions aren’t enough to judge whether it delivers the meaningful build variety it’s hinting at.
The Bottom Line (For Now)
But those are questions for the full review. What matters right now is this: the Scott Pilgrim EX demo is excellent. The combat is tight, responsive, and deep enough to reward mastery. The open-world structure is a smart evolution that adds substance without sacrificing the genre’s arcade soul. The characters are distinct and expressive. The music is phenomenal. And the whole thing runs with the kind of confidence and polish that comes from a studio that knows exactly what it’s doing.
Tribute Games already proved with Shredder’s Revenge that they’re one of the best in the business at making modern beat ’em ups. Scott Pilgrim EX feels like them pushing further — taking the genre they’ve mastered and asking what it could become with more freedom, more depth, and more heart. Based on this demo, the answer is something pretty special.
Scott Pilgrim EX launches March 3, 2026. The demo is available now on Steam, and will be featured during Steam Next Fest from February 23 to March 2. Clear your schedule.
