Charlie Murder: A Punk Rock Apocalypse That Treats Its Premise as a Question
Charlie Murder opens with its own band dead. Charlie, Lester Deth, Tommy Homicide, Kelly “Skelekitten” Skitten and The Rexecutioner get killed, fight their way out of hell, and come back to an Earth already burning. The apocalypse belongs to Lord Mortimer, once known as Paul, a founding member Charlie kicked out before the hits started.
Ska Studios built a beat ’em up around that grudge. It came to Xbox 360 on 14 August 2013, then to PC, Linux and Mac on 12 May 2017 through Steam. It is a side-scrolling brawler with role-playing bones, and it is at its best when it stops pretending the joke is the point.
Five Band Members, Five Movesets
You pick one of the five. Each has a character-specific special attack, and combat runs on two buttons strung into light and heavy melee combinations. Grabs, launches and picked-up weapons fill out the rest. In co-op, up to four players — online or on one couch — can chain group attacks that hit far harder than anything you manage alone.
The scaling matters. Every extra player raises the number of enemies on screen at once. That is a clean answer to co-op trivializing a brawler, and it keeps four-player runs loud instead of easy.
Minibosses are the sharpest wrinkle. They block and counter, which almost nothing else in Charlie Murder does. Bosses carry more health; minibosses carry better habits.
A Graveyard, a Pirate Ship, a Mall
Charlie Murder moves through a construction site, a graveyard, a pirate ship and a mall. The enemy list runs zombies, witches, ninjas, giant rats, yetis, and sharks with dynamite strapped to their heads. Driving and flying levels break up the combat, along with minigames.
An in-game talk radio station plays in enemy-free areas, and callers fill in the band’s history and the state of the world. Flashbacks carry the rest of the backstory. They do not make Charlie the hero or Paul the villain, which is a more interesting choice than the premise suggests.
| Element | Charlie Murder |
|---|---|
| Perspective | Side view |
| Genre | Beat ’em up with RPG elements |
| Players | Single-player, four-player co-op |
| Enemy scaling | More enemies per added player |
| Extras | Minigames, driving and flying levels |
The comparison to Castle Crashers is the one the source invites, and to this writer it holds up: Charlie Murder is the messier, more ambitious sibling.
Two Endings, One Chest Piece
The ending splits on Smockula. Gather every hidden piece and equip them before the final battle, and Lord Mortimer is incapacitated rather than killed. Miss them, and the game ends the moment he falls. The credits then reveal that Paul and Charlie were childhood friends.
That is the whole game in one mechanic. Charlie Murder spends its runtime on punk-versus-death-metal spectacle, then hides its actual argument — that Charlie and Paul were childhood friends, and neither is wholly good or bad — behind a collectible most players will never finish.
Critics praised the soundtrack and hand-illustrated visuals, and they earn it. In this writer’s view, the brawling is shallower than the presentation. But the flashbacks refuse the easy version of the story, and the good ending refuses it too.
Charlie Murder is a 2013 brawler that treats its own premise as a question instead of a punchline. Play it in co-op, chase the Smockula pieces, and take the second ending.
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