He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: Dragon Pearl of Destruction is a side-scrolling beat ’em up from developer Bitmap Bureau, published by Limited Run Games. It is out in 2026 on Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC and Nintendo Switch.
The pitch is narrow and it knows it. Eternia’s heroes — He-Man, Teela, Man-At-Arms and more — fight through a two-player magic-brawler with a retro feel, built from pixel art and big, heavily detailed sprites.
Trailer, via Mattel.
He-Man and Teela in a two-player brawler
The genre label is exact: hack and slash, arcade, side view. Single player, multiplayer, co-operative. Two players share the screen at once, and that is the whole point of a game like this.
Bitmap Bureau is the right studio for the assignment. The pixel-art approach and the oversized sprites are a deliberate choice, not a limitation, and the developer has staked the game’s look on them. The stated goal is to do justice to Eternia’s peace-keepers.
Eternia’s favorite heroes including He-Man, Teela, Man-At-Arms and more in a two-player, retro-inspired 2D magic-brawler, drawn in beautiful pixel-art and featuring huge, highly-detailed sprites, designed to do justice to Eternia’s favorite peace-keepers.
What the brawler frame gets right
The brawler frame is the strongest part of the package. Bitmap Bureau’s sprite work carries real weight: the heroes read cleanly at size, and the pixel art holds up beside the arcade games it is courting. Co-op is where it clicks. Two players on one screen turns a thin move set into a running argument over spacing, and that is the reason to keep the cartridge in.
The weak spot is depth. A side-view brawler with big sprites and co-op is a known quantity, and this one stays inside the known quantity — few surprises in the combat loop, and the Dragon Pearl never quite becomes more than a title. The two-player mode is the mode that matters.
The platform spread is broad: Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC and Nintendo Switch. That is a wide net for a retro-styled arcade game, and it puts Dragon Pearl of Destruction in front of the largest possible audience.
A 7/10 that earns its number
This is a good arcade brawler and not a great one. The sprite work is the best thing in it, the co-op is the reason to play it, and the combat is serviceable without ever being inventive. Nothing here reinvents the arcade brawler. It tries to be a good one, and mostly it is.
That is a fair target, and an honest one. He-Man, Teela and Man-At-Arms in a two-player magic-brawler is exactly what this license should be, and Bitmap Bureau delivers that much.
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