198X is a coming-of-age arcade game spanning multiple genres, out now

Part one of 198X, a genre-spanning arcade game with a coming-of-age story, is out now. It takes about 90 minutes to complete, and in that time you'll play a Streets of Rage-style brawler, an old-school racer, a side-scrolling space shooter, a hack-and-slasher and a dungeon crawling RPG.

198X tells the story of Kid, a teenager "stuck between the limitations of innocent youth and the obligations of inevitable adulthood". He finds solace in a local arcade, switching between various games and uncovering meaning behind each one. Expect plenty of cutscenes to break up the action as you follow Kid to school, to his home and around town.

Judging by the comments on Steam's discussions page, some players weren't aware that 198X was going to be episodic, and they're not pleased. It's not mentioned prominently on the Kickstarter page, but developer Hi-Bit Studios has been talking about it in the page's comments section for a while.

Each individual game looks polished, and the early Steam reviews are promising. Part one covers all of the genres the devs have mentioned during development, so hopefully they're able to mix it up for part two, which is due next year.

If you're interested, it's $10/£9 on Steam and GOG (thanks to the commenter below that pointed out its GOG availability). You can get a taste for each game in last month's trailer, below.

Samuel is a freelance journalist and editor who first wrote for PC Gamer nearly a decade ago. Since then he's had stints as a VR specialist, mouse reviewer, and previewer of promising indie games, and is now regularly writing about Fortnite. What he loves most is longer form, interview-led reporting, whether that's Ken Levine on the one phone call that saved his studio, Tim Schafer on a milkman joke that inspired Psychonauts' best level, or historians on what Anno 1800 gets wrong about colonialism. He's based in London.