Introduction

Strange Brigade is the kind of game that smells faintly of pipe tobacco, spelunking glue, and the confident slap of a fedora - if those were scent descriptors for video games. Rebellion Developments serves up a cooperative third-person shooter set in the 1930s, where four plucky adventurers walk into tombs and immediately regret their fashion choices. It wears its pulp-adventure inspiration on its sleeve and refuses to take itself too seriously, which is either charming or dangerously complacent depending on how many cursed relics you've absorbed this week. You can play solo, but the game clearly prefers you to bring friends so you can blame someone else when the minotaurs charge. On PS4 Strange Brigade arrived on 28 August 2018 and promptly set about teaching players the timeless art of shooting mummies and solving puzzles in increasingly suggestive lighting. It got a warm, if slightly puzzled, reception - critics liked the glossy, old-timey vibe and cooperative loop, but a few reviewers wanted it to be more than 'agreeably playable pulpy fun.' If you enjoy cooperative horde-shooters with archaeological grit and a dose of supernatural melodrama, Strange Brigade will clothe you in linen and send you to fight giant scorpions.

Gameplay

Strange Brigade plays like someone took the DNA of Left 4 Dead, gave it a tan, and fed it serialized adventure comics. At its heart it is a cooperative third-person shooter with a focus on four-player teamwork. Each of the four playable characters has a distinct personality, customizable cosmetics, weapons and a special ability. The loadout and perk choices let you style your run as 'supportive ghost-eater' or 'aggressive prototype-weapon enthusiast.' Combat is satisfyingly straightforward: you spray, you dodge, you set a clever trap, you watch three friends walk into it while shouting encouragement. There's a generous arsenal to unlock and tinker with. Weapons have upgrade slots and can be modified at workbenches dotted around levels - which makes scavenging feel worthwhile and gives the game a gentle RPG-ish progression that keeps you engaged between waves of mythological nastiness. Prototype weapons and treasure chests are hidden in branching paths, which rewards exploration rather than straight-line efficiency. Puzzles pepper the map: they're rarely mind-bending but provide nice little pauses from the constant attempt to stop things from eating you. The enemies pull from a mythological bingo card: mummies, giant scorpions, minotaurs and a few other undead chums. The variety is more than cosmetic - different foes demand different responses, and the occasional boss encounter forces the team to coordinate or to experience a collective and noisy death. The amulet powers you unlock by finding relics and absorbing enemy souls layer a momentary superhero cape on proceedings; activate one and you feel briefly like the star of a 1930s serial who got upgraded by sorcery and questionable ethics. There are traps you can lure enemies into (spikes, spinning blades) and environmental hazards that make each arena feel designed for chaos. Branching level design encourages exploration and sometimes causes friendly arguments about whether to loot the secret alcove or sprint on to the objective. This is the game's best social feature: it makes you die with friends, which is more fun than dying alone. Solo players still get a full package, but the title is happiest when four people are disagreeing about relic ownership and weapon upgrades. Progression is steady but not revolutionary. Currency (gold coins) lets you buy guns, while chests and hidden areas give you prototype toys that are fun to show off. Workbench upgrades are pragmatic and satisfying without being overly complex. In short: Strange Brigade does exactly what it promises - a cooperative, pulpy, shooter-puzzler - and it does it with a smile, a wink and a conveniently placed boulder.

Graphics

The visuals lean into the game's 1930s serial aesthetic with confidence, like a theatrical set designer who read too many adventure magazines. Bright sand, shadowy tombs and suitably decorative hieroglyphics make each level feel like a postcard from 'treacherous but fun.' The art direction clearly resonated with some critics - the game received nominations for art direction and period influence - because it creates a cohesive pulp look that never pretends to be photorealism. Technical performance on PS4 is generally stable. Environments are richly detailed enough to reward exploration without being so visually noisy that you lose your weapon under a pile of cursed statuettes. Character models are competent and the enemy design strikes a good balance between grotesque and playable (the minotaurs are serious about head-butts; the scorpions are dramatic and pointy). Lighting and color work together to sell the mood of each zone, from sun-bleached deserts to the pleasantly gloomy underworld finale. If you want to nitpick, the animations are sometimes a little stiff when compared to the latest triple-A standards, but the overall package leans more toward charming and cinematic than rough-around-the-edges.

Conclusion

Strange Brigade is an exercise in likable, cooperative indulgence. It doesn't invent new genres, nor does it attempt to rewrite the rules of multiplayer shooters, which is both its strength and occasional weakness. Rebellion took a familiar cooperativeshoter template, wrapped it in a charismatic 1930s adventure coat, and filled it with enough puzzles, traps and mythological punch-ups to carry you through several delightful afternoons. Critically, that blend led to mixed-to-positive response: the PS4 version scores around 73/100 on Metacritic and sits comfortably in the 'solid fun with room to improve' camp. The campaign is enjoyable with friends, the progression systems are satisfying without being greedy, and the visuals sell the pulp tone admirably. If you are the kind of person who enjoys bossy minotaurs, upgrading your gun until it feels morally compromised, or telling your friends 'no, that relic is mine' in an increasingly hostile whisper, then Strange Brigade delivers. If you demand innovation above all else, it might feel like a well-made pastiche rather than a revelation. For the rest of us who like unserious danger and a cooperative excuse to use explosives, it's a guilty pleasure you don't have to feel too guilty about.

See Latest Prices for Strange Brigade on PS4 on Amazon

See Prices for Strange Brigade on PS4 on Ebay