In this review
The big picture
Chained Beasts has found a solution to the friend who wanders off during co-op: attach them to everybody else. Featherweight Games' gladiator roguelike puts a physical chain between its fighters, so one person's heroic charge can become another person's unexpected appointment with a wall. Teamwork is no longer a polite suggestion on the loading screen. It has tension and a limited radius.
The full game launched on October 15, 2026, for Windows, macOS, PS5, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch, after earlier demos and tests. It builds on a chain-fighting idea with injuries, upgrades and a campaign through increasingly demanding arenas. The immediate joke is obvious. The more interesting question is whether your group can become skilful at being a collective tripping hazard.
Reasons to look closer
The chain makes positioning everyone's problem. You cannot claim a quiet corner and treat your teammates as decorative health bars. Coordinated movement can trip enemies; badly coordinated movement can wrap the team around scenery. A pillar has no combat abilities and still has a promising chance of defeating you. The pleasure comes from learning to move as a group without needing a committee meeting every time somebody spots a sword.
Combat provides plenty of reasons to move. Shove enemies into hazards, use objects as improvised weapons or throw your own weapon for a ranged attack. That last option includes the beautifully literal consequence of no longer holding your weapon. Before sending it flying, consider whether the follow-up plan involves retrieving it or explaining to three attached people why you now need to visit the far side of the arena.
These combat and cooperation systems give the slapstick a purpose. Shared movement can become a deliberate tactic, not merely something that occasionally interrupts attacking. A good team should have reasons to value the tether, even while saying deeply unkind things about it. If the idea sounds annoying rather than intriguing, extra unlocks are unlikely to make you suddenly appreciate compulsory proximity.
Recovery comes with personality problems
Healing between rounds requires accepting an affliction. Regaining health therefore changes the conditions of the next fight instead of returning everyone to a clean starting point. The arena does not simply patch you up. It sends you back out with a new reason your friends might want to stand farther away, which is unfortunate given the chain situation.
The launch afflictions get pleasingly specific. Impulsive forces purchases at every shop and a new skill selection every second level. Your carefully planned build now has the self-control of someone browsing snacks while hungry. Infatuated makes the camera follow an ally and grants extra damage when that ally watches you. Suddenly “look at me” is a legitimate combat request, albeit one that may sound worryingly familiar to the group.
Annoying can provoke nearby teammates into attacking. That name is admirably economical. These drawbacks interfere with decisions, information and cooperation rather than merely shaving a percentage off a statistic. You must adapt to the particular mess you have accumulated. Players who enjoy improvising around inconvenient rules have plenty to consider; players who want precise control over every mistake may resent receiving additional mistakes as medical treatment.
There is a campaign under the heap
The journey moves through Carthage, Germania and Rome, ending with Praefectus and his guard. The released structure contains nine battles across three acts before the final encounter, ten difficulty levels, eight unlockable beasts and variants, more than 70 skills and over 40 items. That gives the arena format a route to follow without pretending that walking to a distant map marker is what this group needs. Walking already has enough problems.
Replayability rests on combinations and coordination. New skills and items matter when they change how the tethered fighters solve a battle; additional difficulty matters when the group actually wants another test. A large unlock list cannot rescue an evening in which two players are trying to win and the third has decided that tangling everyone is the entire entertainment budget. Decide whether you all find the same disasters funny.
Check the guest list and the controllers
Solo play is supported, along with local and online cooperation for up to four players. Cross-platform play is advertised, helping friends on different systems get together. Same-screen play on PC requires at least one gamepad, and online console play brings the relevant platform subscription requirement. Check the equipment before assembling the gladiators. “We forgot a controller” is a rather tame way for this particular team to suffer.
Game Pass availability on Xbox and Windows makes trying it convenient for existing subscribers. The Nintendo Switch edition is compatible with Switch 2, but that means backward compatibility, not a separate native Switch 2 release. Likewise, do not confuse the current package with its post-launch roadmap: an extra arena and boss are planned for December, while PvP is targeted for early 2027. Competitive fighting is not a feature you can count on today merely because your friends already keep hitting you.
Verdict
Chained Beasts has a coherent source of comedy and challenge: other people cannot be ignored, and recovering from one problem creates another. The chain, environmental fighting and afflictions can make a team's success feel distinctly its own. It suits friends who want to improve while laughing at the damage. Anyone seeking frictionless cooperation should look elsewhere. Friction is quite literally what happens when everyone tries to go around the same pillar in different directions.
Sources
Information checked on 18 October 2026. Features, platform compatibility and editions can change.
- Steam: Chained Beasts features, Windows and macOS support, and gamepad requirement ↗Official source cited in the approved review.
- Featherweight Games: Chained Beasts official game page ↗Official source cited in the approved review.
- Featherweight Games: release date, platforms and campaign chapters ↗Official source cited in the approved review.
- Featherweight Games: full-release announcement and launch content ↗Official source cited in the approved review.
- Featherweight Games: launch afflictions and their effects ↗Official source cited in the approved review.
- Featherweight Games: post-launch roadmap, with future content clearly dated ↗Official source cited in the approved review.
- Xbox: released versions, cooperative play, Game Pass and online requirements ↗Official source cited in the approved review.
- PlayStation: PS5 release and multiplayer requirements ↗Official source cited in the approved review.
- Nintendo: Switch release, player counts and Switch 2 compatibility ↗Official source cited in the approved review.