Fifteen years after the beloved Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game disappeared from digital storefronts, developer Tribute Games, founded by several alumni of the original, returns to Toronto’s neon-lit streets with Scott Pilgrim EX. Written by series creator Bryan Lee O’Malley and set within the continuity of the Scott Pilgrim Takes Off anime, EX is a side-scrolling beat ’em up that puts a new spin on the familiar world while retaining everything fans loved about the first game. How well does Scott Pilgrim do in his newest game? Find out in our Scott Pilgrim EX review!
Scott Pilgrim EX
Developer: Tribute Games
Publisher: Tribute Games
Platforms: Windows (Reviewed), Xbox, Switch, PlayStation
Release Date: March 3rd, 2026
Price: $28.99
Scott Pilgrim EX delivers exactly what fans of the original wanted: fast, pixelated, and deeply satisfying beat ’em up combat that rewards both casual button-mashers and players willing to dig into its combo system. The fundamentals are tight with light attacks that chain into heavy finishers. You can also do grabs and set up juggle opportunities. Each character has a distinct enough moveset to make trying them all worthwhile.
The real standout this time around is Gideon Graves, who is playable here as a main roster character for the first time. Almost every time he opens his mouth during your playthrough, it will be some reference to him originally being the big bad. Instead of giving Scott Pilgrim a bad time about his questionable Svengali-esque morals with women, the player gets to enjoy full control of him and his dual katana moveset, which is absolute joy.
The combat has a tactile satisfaction to it that never really fades. Every hit lands with the kind of chunky, cartoon-violence feedback that the genre demands, and EX absolutely nails it. I tried and messed around a bit like some of the other fighters, but they really cooked hard with Gideon. The most pleasant surprise in Scott Pilgrim EX is the badge system, which injects a meaningful layer of character customization that the original game never attempted.
Badges are equippable passive items that alter how your character plays in ways both subtle and dramatic. Some add elemental effects to your strikes, others trigger less than stellar effects like having more magnetic range picking up money, and certain combinations unlock synergies that can fundamentally reshape your approach to a run. It is not a deep RPG system by any means, but for a beat ’em up, it adds a genuinely engaging decision layer.
Sitting at the character select screen and experimenting with badge loadouts before a stage feels rewarding in a way that is rare for the genre. The badge system alone elevates EX above its peers and gives the game strong replay value, particularly for completionists who want to try every combination across every character.
The coin-based economy from the original game returns: scavenge currency from downed enemies, spend it at shops and restaurants for stat boosts, and unlock new badges along the way. It is a familiar loop, and it still works. However, the traditional leveling system feels strangely hollow in EX.
Levels accumulate at a baffling rate — within 20 minutes of play, a character can already be sitting at level 30 or beyond — and the individual level-ups feel like they carry very little weight. There’s no sense of a meaningful power curve tied to the number climbing in the corner of the screen.
It quickly fades into background noise. The badge system compensates for this significantly, providing a far more tangible and interesting sense of character growth, but the vestigial leveling system still feels like a missed opportunity to give players a more satisfying long-term hook.
If there is one area where Scott Pilgrim EX unambiguously, unreservedly excels, it is the soundtrack. Anamanaguchi, the chiptune band behind the iconic original score, returns in full force, and they have not missed a single step. The new compositions blend 8-bit energy with melodic rock and synthesizer textures in a way that feels both nostalgic and entirely contemporary.
Each stage has its own musical identity, and the tracks are tuned so perfectly to the pace of the combat that fighting through a crowd of demons while a blazing chiptune riff rises in the background feels almost cinematic. In a game full of strong elements, the soundtrack stands apart as the single best thing about the experience. Anamanaguchi fans who have not yet played EX should consider it mandatory. This is perfect music to listen to when in the car or even while exercising.
One of EX’s cleverest design decisions is its use of alternate realities to break up the visual monotony that plagues many games in the genre. Rather than trudging through the same Toronto streets from start to finish, the game tears holes in reality and sends players charging through alien landscapes, demonic underworlds, and eerie, distorted versions of familiar locations.
The contrast between the cozy Canadian mundanity of the base setting and the grotesque alien or gothic alternate dimensions is striking, and it gives the game a sense of scope and variety that the runtime alone could not achieve. Boss encounters in particular benefit from this design. However, the standard enemy roster does not always match the ambition of the world design.
The three factions: Vegans, Robots, and Demons, offer visual diversity, but the behavioral distinctions between enemy types within each faction can feel limited. The back half of the game, in particular, begins to recycle encounters in a way that dulls the edge of the otherwise excellent combat.
A wider spread of enemy archetypes, particularly in the later stages, would have kept every encounter feeling like a fresh challenge. The female characters are all designed to look charming and appealing in the cute, familiar Scott Pilgrim art style. In some cases, there was a strange effort to showcase their feet for some reason, probably in service to chase certain trends.
Scott Pilgrim EX is a short game. A focused solo playthrough will see most players reach the credits faster than expected, but it’s a brawler, so that might be to its benefit. While the badge system and multiple playable characters provide genuine replay incentive, the brevity of the core experience shows its hand a bit too often. It is the kind of game that leaves you wanting more content in both the best and mildest frustrating sense.
That said, the game makes no effort to hide what it is: a co-op brawler best experienced with friends. Up to four players can brawl together locally or online, and multiplayer transforms the experience entirely. The chaos of four characters filling the screen and trying to grab the coins activates a certain part of the brain that makes you truly feel like you’re at an arcade playing a classic brawler like The Simpsons or one of the X-Men games from yesteryear.
Scott Pilgrim EX is a worthy return to one of gaming’s most criminally underrated brawlers. The badge system makes grinding money feel rewarding, let alone the food upgrades to see how much stronger you can get.
The soundtrack is so good, especially during the early segments. The story feels like something straight out of the 90’s as you jump between different dimensions and times. The leveling system can feel obtuse, and enemy variety sometimes doesn’t quite keep pace with the game’s excellent combat mechanics.
Then again, beating the crap out of vegans for most of the game is kinda great. If you had your fill with the first game, this one is more of the same. But if you have an itch to see where the series goes, Scott Pilgrim EX can provide seriously good fun, especially if you have friends to enjoy it with.
Scott Pilgrim EX was reviewed on Windows using a code provided by Tribute Games. Additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy is here. Scott Pilgrim EX is now available for Windows PC (via Steam), Xbox Series X|S, Switch, PS4, and PS5.
