Anarchy Reigns Review

The great irony of Anarchy Reigns is that it’s so tightly controlled. It strives for chaotic combat in a lawless world ruled by violent brutes. In that respect, it largely succeeds, but it comes at the expense of the freedom Anarchy Reigns initially presents – at first, it carries itself as an open-world action game ruled by chaos, but slowly reveals its farce. As a result, the restrictive, repetitive campaign gets in the way of a multiplayer engineered for the skilled and patient. Anarchy Reigns narrows its appeal at every turn, leaving a small, specific audience to enjoy what will likely make the less patient player’s blood boil in frustration.

At its core, Anarchy Reigns is a third-person brawler where the multiplayer comes first and the single-player suffers for it. The multiplayer characters that make the online mode interesting sit locked behind the single-player story, creating a vicious cycle – you’ll want Anarchy Reigns for its multiplayer, but can’t make the most of it without suffering through its two solo campaigns, each telling the same empty find-a-guy story from two perspectives. But I’ll get to that.