Shank

More about Shank

Shank is a 2D side-scrolling hack-and-slash brawler from Klei Entertainment, the Canadian studio better known today for Don't Starve and Oxygen Not Included, released in 2010 for PlayStation 3 and Windows before later ports to OS X and Linux. Electronic Arts published the game, and the story was written by Marianne Krawczyk, known for her work on the God of War series. The single-player campaign follows Shank, an ex-mob hitman presumed dead, as he returns to hunt down the crime syndicate responsible for murdering his girlfriend, Eva. It's a lean, violent revenge story told mostly through brief cutscenes between levels rather than extended dialogue, with Shank cutting through wave after wave of mob enforcers, debt collectors and increasingly unhinged boss characters on his way to the men who wronged him. Combat is the entire game, and it's built around three weapon categories, each tied to its own dedicated button so they can be freely chained together into combos rather than treated as separate modes. Dual knives offer fast, precise strikes; heavy melee weapons, starting with a chainsaw, hit harder and can stagger groups of enemies; and firearms, starting with a pair of pistols, add ranged pressure that keeps enemies off balance while knives or heavy weapons finish them. Beyond the three starting weapons, enemies drop pick-up-able firearms and throwables, including machine guns, rifles and grenades, that can be grabbed mid-fight for a temporary burst of extra firepower. Shank can also grapple enemies into throws and launch a pounce attack onto nearby targets, letting players link environmental positioning into their combos rather than just fighting through enemies standing still. Levels are built as a steady escalation of these tools against progressively tougher enemy combinations and boss fights, each demanding a different weapon or timing approach rather than reusing the same strategy throughout. Separate from the main story entirely, Shank includes a local two-player co-op campaign that isn't a retelling of the single-player plot but a prequel to it, taking place years earlier and starring Shank alongside his then-partner, Falcone. The co-op campaign uses the same core combat system but adds mechanics built specifically around two players working together, including combinable special attacks that pair the two characters' moves for extra damage, and the ability for one partner to revive the other after being knocked down. It's built as a separate couch co-op experience rather than an add-on to the solo game, with its own levels and pacing designed around two people fighting side by side rather than one. Shank was followed by a direct sequel, Shank 2, released in 2012, which expanded on the original's combat and co-op ideas, but that is a separate game rather than content included in the original release. Visually, Shank leans into a hand-painted, comic-book look, with exaggerated character proportions and splashes of blood rendered in a cel-shaded style that gives every fight a graphic-novel feel rather than a realistic one. The campaign is split into discrete levels rather than one continuous world, each ending at a checkpoint, and a small set of difficulty options lets players adjust how punishing enemy damage and numbers are without changing the combo system itself.