Streets of Rage 4

Streets of Rage 4
Also known as: Bare Knuckle IV (JP) Developers: DotEmu, Lizardcube, Guard Crush Games Publisher: DotEmu Platforms: Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch Released internationally: April 30, 2020 This game has unused animations. This game has unused areas. This game has unused playable characters. This game has unused enemies. This game has unused objects. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused items. This game has unused abilities. This game has unused music. This game has unused sounds. This game has unused text. This game has regional differences. This game has unusual dummy files. This game has a prototype article This game has a prerelease article

This article is a work in progress. ...Well, all the articles here are, in a way. But this one moreso, and the article may contain incomplete information and editor's notes.

After 26 years, Streets of Rage 4 heralds the return of the franchise, now developed by French studios Dotemu, Lizardcube, and the Canadian studio Guard Crush Games. Series mainstays Axel Stone and Blaze Fielding team up with newcomers Cherry Hunter and Floyd Iraia to clean up the streets (once again), this time from Mr. X's white-haired children, The Y Twins. Also, Adam Hunter is finally back and playable again, sporting some sweet sunglasses to boot.

To do: Document the test stages.

Sub-Pages

Prototype Info

Prerelease Info

Unused Mr. X Nightmare DLC Content You can't simulate everything Mr. X's brain has to offer.

Unused Graphics

Unfinished Graphics Don't go out in the streets looking like that!

Items and Pickups

Art	Filename(s)	Description
	talkie_cop talkie_military	Walkie-talkie items, both in cop and military variants (with unknown use, possibly for a discarded police summon ability for the main cast) can be found among the other pickup items. When forced to spawn, it crashes the game when picked up.
	durian	A placeholder graphic for the durian fruit weapon. The photorealistic render may imply that the developers didn't have time to implement it before the release of the game. It eventually got added in an update for the "Mr. X Nightmare" DLC, with a properly drawn sprite.

Retro Graphics

Art	Filename(s)	Description
	adam35 / 36	Frames for SoR1 Adam kicking while being grabbed from behind. This was a normal mechanic in the previous games but in Streets of Rage 4 that isn't possible, leaving behind these frames in the game files.
	sor1_blaze043 / 044 sor1_blaze033	Same goes for SoR1 Blaze, but she comes with her unique throw sprite. The first two sprites were repurposed for an unused blitz attack.
	donovan15 / 16	Also unused in Streets of Rage 2, SoR2 Donovan has his unused jumping attack with the pipe left in the game files. Forcing him to jump or spawn from the top of the screen through external means makes him use the jump sprite, but he can never attack in the air.

Miscellaneous Graphics

Boss Max Charging

A copy of one of Boss Max's sprites that is missing the left arm, for some reason.

Raven Grab

Raven, grabbing the player and striking with the knee, a thing he used to do in Streets of Rage 2. All of his other variants possess a properly recolored copy of these sprites.

Smoke Bomb

Placed inside the "fx" folder of the Margaret enemy (the ones that throw vials at you) is this "smokebomb" named animation. Probably intended for a scrapped variant of these enemies.

Sonic Mania Monitor

This is an odd one. Inside the folder of the destroyable objects of the game, there is this named "bonustv" sprite from Sonic Mania! Likely intended for an easter egg or a secret stage based on a classic Sonic game, probably to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the franchise. In a past Livestream interview with Jordi Asensio, a designer for Streets of Rage 4, he talked about how difficult was trying to include Joe Musashi, of The Revenge of Shinobi fame as a playable guest character, due to how SEGA operates and handles licensing rights. The developers very likely ran into similar issues again and dropped the whole collaboration idea.

Chinatown's Destroyed Vase Pieces

Some broken pieces from the vase object can be found on the Chinatown stage. Perhaps intended to be used just as stage decoration or after the player breaks one of them.

Discarded Dojo Decoration

A piece of wood decoration for the Chinatown stage, meant for one of the rooms of the dojo. Discarded in favor of some fancier graphics. You can see this piece of decor in one of the images in the game's gallery. Note that there's also some pencil testing on the top right of the image.

Art Gallery's Broken Wall

Related to a scrapped sequence in-game where the player's character breaks the wall that connects to the next stage, instead, this happens on a short cutscene that looks very different.

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DJ K-Washi Background Screen

A big screen meant to appear in the background of DJ K-Washi's arena. The game screenshot is a placeholder that serves as an example, and it suggests that it would reproduce what would be happening in the game while you fight the boss. The placeholder screenshot also shows an earlier design for the stage. It's hard to tell in which part of the background where this would fit.

Castle Ball

A reskin of the demolition balls found on Stage 10, and used to be present in one of the last rooms of the Final Stage. It was removed in an update because it used to completely cheese the wave of Big Ben's that appears alongside it, but the graphic file remained in the game files since then.

Test_rond and Test_slope

Two very simple graphics, which are likely leftovers from the engine and tools used during the development, and/or from testing the floor properties. Found on Stage 2 graphic folders, oddly.

Thanks for Playing Screen

Leftover end screen that was used extensively during the demo presentations in gaming events (like the Pax 2018, which the filename indicates). It's located in the "menus" graphic folder. It was removed from the game files following recent updates.

Title Screen Key Art

Likely a mockup of the title screen and/or a placeholder used during development. It may have been intended to be used in the Gallery.

Unused "Base" Enemy Colors

In the game files, there are folders with a full set of graphics with unique colors for these five enemies (respectively: Diamond, Donovan, Signal, Galsia, and Dylan), named "base". As the name implies, very probably it was used as the base for making new color variants for the enemies and wasn't really intended to be ever used as actual variants.

Dummy Graphics

Several Galsia images with a red circle and a blue arrow can be found inside the "sprdummy" folder, along with what seems to be a early placeholder for the pipe weapon. Likely used as references to test out the engine physics, different types of damage, or even the hitboxes during initial stages of development.

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Obscured Graphics

Victy/Roo Cameo

In-game	Full Graphic

Despite being only partially visible, Victy/Roo was fully drawn in the style of the game.

DJ K-Washi Arena Elevator

In-game	Original

A part of the elevator below DJ K-Washi's arena that leads to the airport take-off is actually visible in the game files. The transition just happens in a cutscene and not during the gameplay, but apparently, that wasn't always the case.

Unused Enemies

"Boss" Galsia

A very weird and completely unused Galsia that uses the same sprites of the B.T variant was left unused into the game. Its most notable difference is a headbutt grab move that is exclusive to him (the animation just re-uses the hurt sprites in a clever way). It's likely that this version of Galsia was used a lot during development as a placeholder boss since it has a lot of traits that are more commonly seen in the boss characters, like the abundant super-armor frames on wake-up and its large health bar.

CHR_Koobig

An unfinished version of the Koobo enemy named CHR_Koobig. While its behavior is very similar to the used Koobo, it's very glitchy and doesn't work as intended. It has missing hitboxes on the stomp move, most of the sound effects and voices are absent, and it isn't considered a "heavyweight" enemy (like Big Ben). Interestingly, the "Koobig" name might imply that this version was once planned to be an oversized variant of this enemy that unfortunately didn't go far into development.

Alternative Ralphy and Dunphy

Two alternative versions of the Ralphy and Dunphy enemies, which behavior is more focused on dealing powered-up attacks with the shield, that are strong enough to make the player bounce off the walls. Each of them has slight differences from each other and both are compatible with weapons and work normally if you force them to spawn with any valid ones. While Dunphy was already used in the main game with another behavior, Ralphy was completely unused until it was brought back in the "Mr. X Nightmare" DLC's Survival Mode, albeit with the behavior very similar to the default variant (Murphy) and wielding a Halberd weapon when spawned.

Unused Abilities

Original Blaze Air Special

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As shown in some early gameplay footage, Blaze's Air Special was originally a powered singular dive kick before being replaced with an upwards, repeatable kick, presumably for greater combo potential.

SoR1 Blaze Blitz Attack

A completely unused blitz attack for SoR1 Blaze can be activated back into the game using external programs (such as Cheat Engine). Although blitz attacks did not exist in Streets of Rage 1, she has one in her list of "actions", which is locked by not having a properly assigned input. If an input is assigned to it, works perfectly without any issues. The true reason for it to be scrapped is currently unknown, but it was likely meant to be unlocked by playing the Survival Mode (like the rest of the alternative moves).

(Source: I Am Me)

SoR1 Axel Blitz Attack

Like SoR1 Blaze, SoR1 Axel also has a completely unused blitz attack in the game. It can again be re-activated using either Cheat Engine or the SOR 4 Swapper. If you use the swap tool, the move is called "DashHeadButt". Once again, likely meant to be unlocked in survival mode before being scrapped.

(Source: George They're on to us!)

SoR1 Adam Blitz Attack

Adam too has one, a dashing elbow attack. It can be enabled from Cheat Engine or the SOR 4 swapper. Like the rest, works with no issues when assigned to an input.

(Source: George They're on to us!)

SoR3 Axel Air Special Attack

Weirdly, despite looking like a blitz attack, it's registered in the game as an air special but works without having to jump at all...? Except for Roo, none of the SoR3 characters in Streets of Rage 4 have an air special attack, just like in Streets of Rage 3. Likely another move meant to be unlocked in Survival Mode. It's possible that this was used as the basis for SoR3 Axel's new Co-op move.

(Source: I Am Me)

Unused Music

Early Demo Track

A completely unused track (named 846343275.wem in the PC game files) that was used in the demo presented at the Pax West 2019, for Stage 1, after the car crash. It's a rather weird piece of music, that prominently features a reversed sample of a dude singing in Portuguese. It wasn't present in the game files on the release but was added to the game files after the Mr.X Nightmare DLC update. It ended up being repurposed for the Level Select/Loading Screen for Stage 1, where it sounds a lot more muffled and the "lyrics" were removed, giving place to louder city ambiance sounds. The composer is Olivier Derivière. On Twitter, he confirmed that it was always meant to be a placeholder, while the dev team was waiting for Yuzo Koshiro's music.

(Source: B. Comet)

Stage 1

A demo version of "They're Back", left in the game files as 273746065.wem. and referred to as 20191129_SOR4_Stage01_bgm01-07_B812F123.wem on the Nintendo Switch version. You could hear this version of it when playing the Stage 1 in the Battle Mode during the launch day, which was fixed shortly after.

When asked about this version on his Twitter, Yuzo Koshiro said: "That's a demo version that once I sent to Dotemu to check if it's ok. All the instruments in it are plugins at the point. If they love it, I record live instruments and replace them. I didn't know it was hidden."

(Source: Merusu Surume)

Stage 5

Named as 103994451.wem in the game files (stage5-3_BOSS_SOR2-v2-01 on the Switch). Judging by the Switch name, it was probably an early alternative boss theme meant for Barbon, since he is the main boss for the stage and is originally from Streets of Rage 2 as well. The composer is currently unknown.

Early Barbon's Theme

A slightly different version of Barbon's Boss theme, under the name "103994451.wem" in Steam version. According to Motohiro Kawashima on his Twitter, he stated that it's the song "in the state before mastering" .

(Source: Merusu Surume)

Unused Sounds

To do: Identify and rip the remaining Streets of Fury (EX) leftovers? There is a lot of them.

Main Game Sounds

Filename(s)	Sound	Description
.0089		Similar to his playable appearance in Streets of Rage 2, it's the boss version of Max shouting its iconic voice line. It could have been used for his flying kick attack but goes unused for... whatever reason. After the Mr. X Nightmare DLC update, this sound was removed.
.0138		A classic extra-life sound mixed with something else...? Feels like it could have got some use on the Pier stage, along with the arcade house. After the Mr. X Nightmare DLC update, this sound was removed.
.516		A "Dropkicku" sound effect leftover from Streets of Fury (EX), a game made by Guard Crush Games before Streets of Rage 4, which uses the same engine. This line was later referenced by Max's playable appearance, where he has a small chance to say it when doing his flying kick attack. Before the Mr. X Nightmare DLC update, this sound was named .0488.
.590/.1740		Two very similar "bonk-like" sounds, with unknown purpose.
.698/.879		Two voice lines that don't seem to belong to any characters in the game, possibly more leftovers from Streets of Fury (EX). Before the Mr. X Nightmare DLC update, both sounds were respectively named .0665 and .0844.
.722		A weird "bump" noise. Maybe intended for a destroyable object.
.816/.1418/.1561		Mr. Y's old laugh, which was changed in favor of a younger-sounding one. This version of his voice could actually be heard in the launch build of the game, which was fixed on the same day (except for the Xbox One version). You can still find some gameplays where you can hear this version of his voice instead.
.990		A alternative version of Mr Y's laugh. Likely discarded because it did not fit well with his animation.
.841		It's someone/something blowing on a tube...? Or a bottle...? Hard to tell without a clear context.
.738		The sound of a microphone drop on the floor? Could have been related to DJ K-Washi's boss fight.
.739		Some cracking sounds.
.797		A rather low quality engine(?) sound. Maybe related to the scrapped idea of playable motorcycle stages.
.827		A scrapped version of the confirmation sound used in the menus, reminiscent from the original games.
.839		A rather goofy boss/playable character defeated sound. It's currently unknown to who this was supposed to belong.
.923		Basic gunshot sound. Likely used as a placeholder at some point.
.874/.1283		Two "anime" sounds. Once again, most likely leftovers from Streets of Fury (EX) or the developers were just joking around.
.954		An unused grunt from Adam.
.1153		Probably an unused version of the Sugar enemy (the Biker girls) charge attack.
.1582		A short "Itae" voice line for Blaze(?).

Retro Sounds

Filename(s)	Sound	Description
.0665/.1496		The two of the defeated enemy sounds from the original Streets of Rage, which has no secret stages based on it, nor the regular enemies make an appearance in the Survival Mode.
.453		SoR3's Shiva "Final Crash". The character uses the Streets of Rage 2 variant of the voice line instead. Likely an oversight.
.900		The Gatling Gun sound from the original Streets of Rage player 2 police call. Only the player 1 variant is used for all the SoR1 characters.
.1463		SoR2 Barbon's classic C'mon!. Maybe his classic variant was planned to appear as a secret boss fight in the main game. This version of him ended up appearing in the Survival Mode, but this voice line is still unused despite that.
.1645		Abadede's arena cheers, which were supposed to play when the player is knocked down, like in Streets of Rage 2.
.1481		The voice of SoR1 Blaze clones from the original game.
.1587		The stomping sound of the Particle enemy from Streets of Rage 2.

Unused Text

Internal Names

In the game files, some enemies are referred to by early, or placeholder names.

Internal name	Final name
Kalaas	Beyo
Mariah	Riha
Electra	Belle
Georgia	Caramel
Janet	Candy
Tin	Iron
Karate	Goro
Karate2	Tatsu
Karate_masa	Dokuja
Karate_tiger	Tora
Elite	Murphy
Elite_l3_gold	Ralphy
Elite_l4_dark	Dunphy
Elite_l5_shadow	Shadow
Elite_l6_light	Sand
Cop	Feroccio
Cop2	Dick
Copbad	Barney
Copbad2	Lou

Regional Differences

Move Name Changes

The Japanese physical version of the game came with a big poster ala Bare Knuckle III: its backside compiles all the move sets of the 4 initially available characters. The names of the blitz and special moves are also available in-game in the Extra section. The move names in-game in the different languages are all direct translations of the English names. But the big poster does give different names for some moves of Cherry and Floyd.

Move	In-game Name	Poster Name
Cherry's blitz	Flying Knee	Cherry Kick
Cherry's special	Sound Check	Elec Shock
Cherry's forward special	Townshend Smash	Guitar Strike
Floyd's blitz	Thunder Twins	前方衝撃波 Zenpou Shougekiha (Forward Shockwave)
Floyd's special	Thunder Sphere	Shock Wave
Floyd's forward special	Magnetic Grab	Rocket Arm
Floyd's grabbing special	(no name assigned)	Power Spark

Logo Changes

To do: Better quality screenshots.

Changing the game's language to Asian ones also changes its logo to "Bare Knuckle IV" on the menu, story mode intro, credits, and changes Skate's name back to Sammy in a similar way to the previous entries in which the game name changes to "Bare Knuckle" when playing the Japanese versions. The cinematic intro, however, stays with the "Streets of Rage 4" logo regardless of the language chosen.

Streets of Rage 4	Bare Knuckle IV
Main Menu
Story Mode Intro

Oddity

Shiva (Streets of Rage 2)

To do: Having a video of him in action would be nice.

All of the sprites of Sor2 Shiva are placed in the internal playable character folders and are organized in the exact same way as his SoR3 counterpart. This may mean that the developers wanted to make SoR2 Shiva playable from early in development, but then realized that he was never playable in Streets of Rage 2 to begin with. While this version of him is encountered as a hidden boss fight, only the third and fourth installment versions are selectable by regular means. Weirdly enough, in a short video posted by Dotemu you can see this version being used like a playable character (sorta).