Mega City Force brings its retro synthwave shooting to consoles today

Mega City Force is out today on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox consoles, and Nintendo Switch. Undreamed Games and publisher Ravenage released the console ports of the top-down action roguelike this morning, alongside a new launch trailer focused on the PlayStation editions.

The game originally launched on PC via Steam in July 2023 under the name Mega City Police. This console release brings the exact same fast-paced, pixel-art shooting to controllers. It is priced at $14.99 on the PlayStation Store.

Choosing your agent

Players pick from 12 distinct agent classes before heading into the streets to clear out criminal factions. The character select screen is laid out like a police precinct office, with different agents waiting at their desks. Each character has different starting loadouts, health pools, and special abilities. You start with a standard patrol officer and unlock specialized units as you complete runs and gather resources.

The gameplay loop is built around roguelike mechanics. You fight through procedurally generated city blocks and collect better gear along the way. When you die, you lose your current weapons and start over from the precinct.

The arsenal includes over 100 different weapons. The loot pool ranges from standard pistols and shotguns to heavy laser rifles and explosive launchers. You can also find and pilot large combat mechs, which provide a massive armor boost and heavy firepower until they take too much damage.

The criminal factions you fight are just as varied as your weapon selection. You will face off against street punks with baseball bats, heavily armored mercenaries, and cybernetic bosses that require specific tactics to defeat. The difficulty ramps up quickly as you move deeper into the city.

Local co-op and synthwave

The console release supports local cooperative multiplayer. Two players can share a screen and tackle the campaign together. Having a second player means you have someone sitting right next to you to blame when a run falls apart during a boss fight.

Moving a top-down shooter from a mouse and keyboard to a controller requires specific tuning for the dual-stick layout. The console versions map movement to the left stick and aiming to the right, functioning like a standard twin-stick shooter. The auto-aim assist can be adjusted in the settings menu for players who prefer manual control over their shots.

The visual style leans heavily into 1980s action movie aesthetics, complete with scanline filters, neon color palettes, and excessive pixel-art gore. Enemies explode into red pixels when hit with heavy weapons, and the environments are filled with destructible objects like cars and explosive barrels.

To match the visuals, the soundtrack is composed entirely of licensed retrowave and synthwave music. Undreamed Games secured tracks from established artists in the genre, including Timecop1983, Occams Laser, Nightcrawler, and Droid Bishop. The music drives the pacing of the combat and keeps the energy high as the screen fills with projectiles.

While the launch trailer from Sony specifically highlights the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 versions, the game is not a platform exclusive. The console ports were announced on August 5 for all current platforms, meaning the game is also live right now on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch.