Brawlhalla

Come for the crossover chaos, stay for the ground-pound mind games.

If you ever dreamed of watching Aang throw hands with WWE’s finest on a floating sky arena while a cartoon Viking hurls a rocket lance across the screen, Brawlhalla is your kind of party. This free-to-play platform fighter has quietly built a 100-million-strong army of brawlers, and after a few matches, I get it: this is Smash Bros. with Saturday morning cartoon energy and the attention span of a sugar-rushed esports tournament.

Like its inspiration, Brawlhalla drops you into wide-open arenas filled with floating platforms and one rule: knock ‘em off before they knock you out. But while Smash leans on combos and precision, Brawlhalla gives you room to get scrappy. Wall jumps? Infinite. Triple jumps? Standard. Item throws? Glorious. This is a game where you can dodge three times mid-air, toss a sticky bomb, and pogo-stick off someone’s skull with a giant hammer—all in one breathless five-second highlight reel.

Weapons are randomized between two per Legend, keeping things spicy. One life you’re slicing through the sky with katars; the next, you’re throwing a cannon the size of a minivan. Items litter the field—bombs, sidekicks, spike balls—and every pick-up is a ticket to mayhem. Strategy still matters, but Brawlhalla is as much about tempo and trickery as technicality. The matches are fast, weird, and consistently hilarious.

And while the game’s cartoon aesthetic might fool you into thinking it’s lightweight, its systems are anything but. Ranked 1v1 and 2v2 queues offer serious competitive depth, with skill-based matchmaking and seasonal rewards that hit just right. There are over 20 game modes—yes, twenty—and whether you’re sweating over Elo or just vibing in an eight-player chaos-fest with Master Chief and Rayman, the game meets you where you’re at.

Microtransactions exist, but Brawlhalla earns points for transparency. Every Legend can be unlocked with in-game gold, and the weekly free rotation keeps things fresh. Cosmetics are flashy but purely optional, and a $20 one-time unlock gets you every character forever.

Brawlhalla doesn’t just riff on the Smash formula—it builds a Viking longhouse around it, invites every pop culture icon it can find, and hosts the loudest brawl this side of Valhalla. No Switch, no problem. Just bring a controller—and maybe a few grudges.