Stranger Than Heaven Weapons

If you played older RGG brawlers where a bat was a short costume, unlearn that. Commenters on the July combat trailer already clocked the difference. In this system the right bumper might be a crowbar while the left bumper is still a punch, a block, or a grab-break. Shacknews’ grab story only works because the empty hand stayed alive. Read controls if that sentence is still abstract. Then imagine the right trigger kicking while the right bumper is busy being a blade. Legs are not the weapon. They are the other person inside Makoto.

Upgrades are confirmed at the marketing level, not as a spreadsheet. There is no honest damage table yet. There is an honest warning: do not wait for a wiki numeric tier list in November. Use this page for roles. Use how to survive for when to even draw steel in a crowd. A knife in a four-man circle is a commitment; a charged empty hand might be the spare limb that keeps you standing.

Dosu: Kagekiri is the preorder weapon, a dosu (a short yakuza blade) with a name that reads as shadow-cut. Every current Standard, Deluxe, and Collector’s preorder pitch includes it, with store-specific deadlines — Xbox and PlayStation have cited January 14, 2027 23:59 in some regions, Steam January 15, 2027 13:59 JST-adjacent. Details live on the preorder page. We do not have its moveset. We have its job: a reason to order before launch day if you like short blades.

Deluxe’s “set of 4 new weapons” is unnamed in public US copy. Japanese store pages describe them as broadening combat. Until the four names leak in a menu screenshot, they remain a bundle, not a list. Do not trust a random image macro. Trust the editions hub and the compare tool for what you pay, then come back here when the four have names.

1915 Kokura is industrial muscle: think tools that were never meant to be weapons. 1929 Kure is a naval arsenal city with family politics; blades and harbor instruments fit the threat picture. 1943 Osaka is showbiz under wartime tension; a prop can become a problem. 1951 Atami is a tourist town with American fashion leaking in. 1965 Shinjuku is the pleasure district that will one day rhyme with Kamurocho. RGG has not published a per-era smithy. It has published five cities with different jobs, which we catalog in the cities guide. Expect the world to hand you objects that match the lie of that decade.

Finishers and environmental kills sit next to weapons rather than inside them. A pipe on a wall is not your inventory. A katana you upgraded is. The cinematic car fight is neither; it is a directed scene that still uses the sided idea in close quarters. If you only chase legendary swords you will miss the broom, and this is a game that also wants you to record the broom for a song. That joke is the design. See how to run shows.

Empty hands until the bumpers are muscle memory. Then one short blade for tight rooms. Then one heavy for armored-looking men and for the joy of a charged right. Keep the left hand honest — it is your insurance. Swap if a grab keeps targeting your toy. That is the whole theory until numbers exist. It is also why this page refuses a fake S-tier list. A tier list without frames is astrology.

If you are buying steel with real money, you are buying Deluxe or a preorder. Game Pass players get the base roster. Standard physical at Amazon may only add a poster, not a knife. Collector’s adds Kagekiri via voucher plus Deluxe via voucher. Read should you preorder as a wallet guide and this page as a hands guide. Together they answer the only adult question: do I need more knives to enjoy January 15?