Here is a question the games industry rarely stops to answer honestly: when is nostalgia a legitimate creative foundation, and when is it simply a commercial shortcut? Scott Pilgrim EX, which landed today on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch, sits squarely at that intersection. And, according to IGN's review, it mostly earns the right to be there.
The game is the work of Montreal-based Tribute Games, the studio that gave the world Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge and, before that, helped develop the original Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game back in 2010. That original title launched alongside Edgar Wright's film adaptation and Bryan Lee O'Malley's final graphic novel volume, was praised for its pixel art and Anamanaguchi soundtrack, won Best Adapted Video Game at the 2010 Spike Video Game Awards, and was then unceremoniously delisted from digital storefronts in December 2014. It returned only as a Complete Edition remaster in January 2021. EX, then, is the proper sequel nobody quite expected, arriving sixteen years after the first game and carrying the weight of all that history on its 8-bit shoulders.
Strip away the talking points and what remains is a genuinely considered piece of game design. The premise is standard beat 'em up territory: set in Toronto in the year 20XX, the band Sex Bob-omb has been kidnapped by a villain called Metal Scott, and players must fight through three city-controlling factions (the Vegans, the Robots, and the Demons) to save them. What separates EX from its predecessor and from many of its genre contemporaries is the shape of the world it takes place in. This is not a stage-select game. Toronto is a contiguous, explorable city, with side missions, hidden items, and portals to other time periods tucked into its districts. IGN's review singles this out as one of the game's genuine accomplishments, noting that the city feels like a place rather than a backdrop.
The seven playable characters are the other major talking point. Scott Pilgrim and Ramona Flowers anchor the roster, joined by former antagonists including Roxie, Matthew Patel, Lucas Lee, Gideon, and Robot-01. Each plays differently in ways that matter: Ramona punishes at mid-range with her hammer, Lucas is a heavy bruiser, Matthew is described as a puppet character (a rarity in the genre), and Robot plays like a zoner. Anyone familiar with modern fighting games will find the character differentiation immediately legible. The game also supports up to four-player co-op, both locally and online.
The counter-argument deserves serious consideration: is there anything here that justifies the purchase beyond the comfort of revisiting a beloved franchise? The honest answer from IGN is: probably yes, but with caveats. The review explicitly states the game does not reach the mechanical depth of Streets of Rage 4, which remains the genre benchmark. Tribute's own Shredder's Revenge is also rated higher. What EX offers instead is a layered RPG progression system, with coins spent on stat-boosting equipment and badges, and a combat engine that is meaningfully faster and more freeform than the 2010 game. The original, IGN notes, left players standing around after being hit; EX keeps things moving.
There is also something worth examining in who made this game and why it exists at all. Scott Pilgrim EX was co-written by O'Malley himself alongside the Tribute Games team, with pixel artist Paul Robertson and composer Anamanaguchi both returning from the original. BenDavid Grabinski, the director of the Netflix anime Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, served as creative consultant. This is not a franchise cynically handed to a work-for-hire studio. It is, by the evidence of its credits, a project made by people who care about the source material. That does not guarantee quality, but it does guarantee intent.
The game's thematic self-awareness is perhaps its most interesting quality. IGN's review observes that Scott Pilgrim as a franchise has, over the past two decades, transformed from a piece of culture that referenced older art into older art that is itself now referenced. The beat 'em up genre it inhabits was born in arcades that no longer exist. The graphic novel that inspired it debuted in 2004. EX deals with time travel not merely as a plot device but, according to the review, as something that sits beneath the entire enterprise: you can go back, but you cannot return to the way things were.
Whether that registers as meaningful storytelling or as post-hoc rationalisation of a commercial product will depend on the player. What is harder to dispute is the practical verdict: Scott Pilgrim EX is a well-constructed, replayable, and genuinely enjoyable beat 'em up that adds depth where its predecessor was shallow and speed where it was sluggish. The games industry produces no shortage of nostalgic revivals that coast on goodwill. Tribute Games has, by most accounts, done the harder thing: built something that stands on its own terms. In a market crowded with remasters and reboots, that remains the more honest form of tribute.