If Hotline Miami was a synthed up fever dream, Anger Foot is that same dream dosed with five espresso shots and a white Monster chaser.
Developed by Free Lives (Broforce, Genital Jousting), this first-person kicker makes supercharged, choreographed chaos into an artform. Less about survival and more about weaponising momentum, it’s dumb, brilliant, infuriating, and wildly addictive.
Kick First, Ask Questions Never
The premise is disarmingly simple. You are Anger Foot, a sneakerhead whose prized shoe collection has been stolen by the criminal degenerates of Shit City. So, as most great video game characters do, you seek out your revenge. By kicking down every door and flattening every thug, you slowly reclaim your shoes from the various thugs across the city, one stomp at a time.
Every level provides a new claustrophobic encounter, with tightly wound microbursts of dopamine-inducing combat. Boot a door off its hinges, blast through a room of enemies before they blast you and then do it all over again. Despite having a godlike insta-kill foot, you’re not invincible. Enemies can overwhelm you if you don’t keep moving, with levels developing a hypnotic flow once you sync with it.
The titular foot is also the star here. It provides one of the most satisfying melee mechanics I’ve experienced in a while. It’s a perfect blend of cartoon exaggeration and tactical necessity, as doors become projectiles, enemies become pinballs, and the sound design sells every impact with a meaty thud.
The Gospel of the Shoe
The sneaker obsession isn’t just for laughs; it’s built into the foundation of the game’s loadout system. Each pair of shoes grants a unique modifier, like sandals that resurrect you once per level or loafers that activate slow-motion on impact. Some are clever, some are deliberately terrible, but together they form a rhythm of experimentation that keeps replayability high.
Each mission also comes with optional challenges. Finishing under time limits, avoiding weapons, or using specific footwear really encourages you to remap your muscle memory and find new solutions to old problems. You’re forced to exit the flow state that sets in after a few levels and try a new approach. It’s a compliment to the game that it’s fun to try new things, and it doesn’t feel like a chore.
Controlled Chaos
Levels are short, and most can be completed in under two minutes, but they demand total focus. The best runs feel like a well-timed ballet, where every kick and shot lines up perfectly with the music’s pulse. The worst runs, meanwhile, end with you getting annihilated on entry and watching enemies break into a smug little dance over your corpse.
And that’s part of Anger Foot’s masochistic charm. It knows it’s frustrating. The biggest flaw is the brief three-second delay between death and restart, which is just long enough for irritation to register and your blood pressure to spike.
A World Called Shit City
It’s tempting to dismiss Anger Foot’s humour as juvenile, and to be fair, it is. However, it’s really quite self-aware. The sight gags from catching enemies on the toilet to skeletons having board meetings create a perfectly absurdist cartoon world that’s as slapstick as its gameplay.
The soundtrack is also a relentless barrage of pulsing nightclub beats, driving everything forward. It serves as a relentless metronome that syncs your blood pressure with the BPM. Combined with the precise sound design, it’s one of the most immersive audio experiences in recent memory for a game that’s mostly about kicking people and breaking things.
The Kicker
When Anger Foot falters, it’s rarely because the premise runs out of steam. More often, it’s because it occasionally forgets what makes it fun. Some late-game encounters funnel you into overly punishing rooms that stifle improvisation, turning what should be chaos into routine. The balance between empowerment and frustration can wobble, especially when your best-laid plans explode in your face for reasons that feel cheap rather than earned.
But just when it threatens to overstay its welcome, Anger Foot hands you a new weapon, a new pair of shoes, or an entirely new gang hideout to pulverise. The four major zones, from sewer shantytowns to glitzy corporate high-rises, each twist the formula enough to keep things interesting.
Final Thoughts
Anger Foot is a fever dream of aggression and absurdity, a first-person action game that weaponises rhythm and repetition into pure kinetic joy. It’s not as razor-sharp as its inspirations, and its humour occasionally leans too hard on juvenile shock value, but the core loop of perfect runs and cathartic violence never loses its impact.
Like its protagonist, Anger Foot is loud, messy, and impossible to ignore. You’ll swear at it. You’ll laugh with it. You’ll die. But you’ll restart it and kick down the next door anyway.
FOUR STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Highlights: Exhilarating momentum-driven combat; Incredibly satisfying kick-based melee system; Creative shoe modifiers that encourage experimentation;
Lowlights: Occasional balance spikes that punish improvisation; Brief but frustrating restart delay after death
Developer: Free Lives
Publisher: Devolver Digital
Platforms: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Windows PC
Available: Now
Review conducted on PlayStation 5 with a launch code provided by the publisher.
Featured header image provided by the publisher.
