Canceled Edgerunners Brawler Would've Been a Handheld Dream
A Cyberpunk: Edgerunners beat-‘em-up from the studio behind Shantae sounds like a perfect handheld pickup-and-play title – and that’s exactly what makes the news of its uncertain fate sting a little harder for portable gamers. According to a report from MP1st, CD Projekt Red and WayForward were quietly collaborating on a 2.5D brawler codenamed “Gemini,” built with rollback netcode and online multiplayer in mind. But funding delays and layoffs at WayForward have reportedly left the project in limbo, and while neither CDPR nor WayForward have commented, the genre and studio pedigree scream “ideal for Steam Deck and Switch 2.”
Rollback and Runs: A Brawler Built for On-the-Go Sessions
The report describes Gemini as a “rollback-driven 2.5D brawler” – the same netcode approach used in modern fighting games to minimize lag. For handheld players, that’s huge. A brawler with solid netcode means quick multiplayer matches are viable even on spotty Wi-Fi — a feature that could have helped it avoid the launch issues faced by other fighting games like Avatar Legends., and the genre’s short, punchy levels fit perfectly into portable sessions. WayForward’s track record with River City Girls and Double Dragon Neon shows they understand pick-up-and-play flow, and the Edgerunners’ hyper-stylish anime aesthetic would have translated beautifully to a 720p or 800p screen. Whether on Steam Deck at 60fps or Switch 2 in handheld mode, this was a recipe for a game that respects your time and your battery.
What We Lost: Why a Retro-Style Cyberpunk Game Mattered
The Edgerunners anime proved the Cyberpunk universe works outside dense open-world systems – it’s colourful, kinetic, and built for set-pieces. A beat-‘em-up makes narrative sense: David and Lucy’s story is already a series of escalating fights. For handheld gamers, that means no bloat. No 100-hour commitment. Just tight, replayable action that loads fast and runs well on mid-range hardware. The fact that the project was reportedly in R&D as recently as last year suggests a vertical slice was delivered before funding fell through — similar to the performance hurdles that led to Unbeatable’s delay on Switch 2 — but with CDPR busy on the Edgerunners sequel and The Witcher 4, don’t hold your breath for revival. If anything, this should remind us that when a handheld-friendly genre meets a major IP, the mobile-first audience is often the last to know what almost was.