Killer Queen Arcade is easily one of the greatest modern arcade games of all-time. When the rumored console adaptation, Killer Queen Black, was confirmed to be at E3 I booked an appointment to play as soon as possible.
At its core, Killer Queen Black is a refined version of what the arcade cabinet has to offer. Cut down to just 4v4 one player still controls their queen, and the other players are worker drones.
The queen’s primary job is to stay alive, because after three deaths the other team wins with a military victory. The secondary responsibility of the queen is to control the iron maidens on the map, so only their team can receive upgrades. The upgrades are used by the drones to help achieve the win conditions. An economic victory is achieved when a certain number of berries (one berry is also required for any upgrade or weapon) are brought back to the spawning area. A military victory is earned by killing the enemy queen three times. Thirdly, the snail victory is achieved by riding the snail into your own goal. These translate perfectly to a console environment, rounds can be quick and its a best two-of-three system.
The iron maidens are how worker drones can power up with a weapon, or a speed boost (which can be stacked with a weapon upgrade if the speed boost is picked up first). The developers haven’t decided on a number of weapons, but promises there to be more than just the laser, mace and sword shown in the E3 build.
Killer Queen Black feels like it should; a chaotic, fast-paced, strategic, team-based action game. Using the Joycon sideways might not be a great control scheme, but the gameplay has been tweaked to account for the differences between using a controller and using an arcade stick. The artstyle has also been tweaked slightly, giving it a distinctive feel which still manages to evoke the arcade version.
One interesting new feature promised by the developers is Killer Queen Black’s namesake “Black Team.” At launch one team will randomly be given a black color scheme, this will then be passed along to the victors. In addition to getting a unique color scheme, the team will also have an automatic Twitch stream dedicated to following their conquest. Killer Queen Arcade has cultivated its own tournament following, with over 55 teams at the last major competition, and the Black Team with their Twitch stream could manage to bring that sense of competition into the home.
While it isn’t quite as incredible as it’s arcade counterpart, Killer Queen Black seems to be a compromise I would be happy to make when I can’t make it to an arcade with the cabinet, or am unable to find a full team to play with.
