Beginner Guide

01 · The plan

Your first session

Don’t try to learn everything at once. One good first session looks like this:

1. Confirm your button layout in the settings.
2. Practice a short Light chain until it feels automatic.
3. Block — standing and crouching Guard — until switching between them is comfortable.
4. Call one assist on purpose, then make one deliberate character switch.
5. Play a match against the CPU and try to do all of the above once.

02 · Muscle memory

The five inputs you need

Light, Medium and Heavy attacks are your bread and butter — chain them into Link Attacks like L > L > L > L. Add the Assemble Assist call and the Switch, and you can already play real matches. Everything else builds on these five.

See the full controls and mechanics reference →

03 · Fight as four

How your team of four works

Your team shares one health bar, so every hit anyone takes matters. At the start of a match, 2 characters are accessible right away; the third and fourth join the fight through:

• Land a qualifying move, combo or throw near an area's edge that causes a stage transition or wall-bounce
• Lose a round

Each opposing player controls one four-character team; two people cannot co-control the same team.

04 · The practice room

Where to practice

These modes are playable offline — a CPU opponent is always available:

• Episode Mode: Single-player story presented with motion-comic storytelling
• Local Versus: Local versus content
• Training Mode: Practice mode; production store pages confirm the mode, not every beta-era setting
• All-Star Arena: Listed as offline content by Steam and Epic
• Character Guides: Listed as offline content by Steam and Epic
• Arcadia Rumble: Fully playable offline with optional online features

Mode list checked August 8, 2026.

05 · Level up

What to learn next

Once the five inputs feel natural, pick one fighter and go deep: every launch character has a guide with their role, signature tools and the official video walkthrough. Learn one character well before adding a second — your team of four will grow naturally from there.