Stranger Than Heaven Adds Optional Combat Assists, But Cheat Gear Gives You Away

At Gamescom Asia x Thailand Game Show 2026 this week, RGG Studio told IGN something that players of its upcoming brawler Stranger Than Heaven may want to hear before they pick up a controller: the game's new combat, built around parrying, will come with optional help for people who struggle with it.

The studio is best known for the Yakuza and Like a Dragon series. Stranger Than Heaven asks for a different kind of rhythm than those games, and producer Hiroyuki Sakamoto acknowledged as much in the interview. He said the team knew mechanics like parrying would be challenging. What the team did not fully know was how players would react, so it put hands-on demos in front of people at various game shows, Gamescom Asia among them.

That feedback changed the game. According to Sakamoto, the developers fine-tuned details such as difficulty balance and control responsiveness after watching players try the demos. He also said the final game includes difficulty settings and a range of support features. His stated goal is that, with enough support for people new to action games, those players will get the chance to play through to the very end.

The most distinctive of those features are what he called cheat items. Equipping them makes the player much harder to defeat, because they automatically restore health and provide other perks. For beginners who still can't get the hang of blocking, Sakamoto said the studio has prepared assistance items that let them clear encounters using only basic left and right punches.

Sakamoto also pointed to a lengthy tutorial phase in the early part of the game. With some perseverance from players and that tutorial's help, he said, he hopes most people will eventually come to enjoy the new mechanics. The assists, in other words, are meant as a bridge as much as a crutch.

Players who want the opposite experience are not left out. Sakamoto described the highest difficulty setting as extremely challenging, so battle-hardened players can still choose a more unforgiving fight. The assists matter most for those who care less about mastering combat and more about the game's story, which spans multiple decades, and its showbiz-themed side activities. For them, the cheat items should mean that every fan of RGG Studio's games can see Stranger Than Heaven through.

There is a catch, and it is typical of the studio's sense of humor. The cheat items are available right from the start of the game, but Sakamoto said they function as handicap items worn as a cloth or garment. Anyone watching your gameplay screen will therefore notice immediately that you are wearing them.

The practical upshot is that nobody will be able to switch on the assists and pass as a parry master on a livestream. The assist system is confirmed by the developer, but the interview did not detail every perk the items provide beyond health regeneration and the punch-only option, so how they play out will become clearer once the finished game is in players' hands.