Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered is out now on PS5, Xbox, PC and Switch for $29.99

One of the best licensed fighting games of the GameCube era is back. Atari, Pipeworks Studios and Toho International launched Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered today, November 3, on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Steam, Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2, according to Atari’s launch press release. It costs $29.99 everywhere. Atari also sells a physical edition on its own store: $29.99 on PS5 and $39.99 on Switch 2, which is a full cartridge. The Switch digital version reaches Japan and some other Asian markets on November 5.

The same studio, rebuilt from scratch

This isn’t a quick port. Pipeworks made the original 2002 game, and Atari published it, so the same two companies are back together for this one. The press release describes it as a high-fidelity Unreal Engine 5 remake rather than a straight upscale. Pipeworks CEO Lindsay Gupton says the team rebuilt it “from the ground up with today’s technology” to get the scale and destruction it always wanted.

What you get

The roster has 12 kaiju, including the Showa-era Mechagodzilla, and Atari says each one has its own moveset, special moves and Rage Mode attacks. There are 8 locations, each with day and night versions. They cover real cities like Tokyo and San Francisco, plus Monster Island and the alien Mothership. The arenas are fully destructible, and you can still pick up buildings and throw them at the other monster, which was always the best part.

The big modern additions are online matchmaking, which the original never had, 4K performance, and a point-based unlock and upgrade system. Pogwire notes that you can unlock things in any order, and that each kaiju has its own campaign. The Digital Deluxe Edition adds two exclusive skins, an extra map and a black-and-white movie filter. Early word is good: the Steam page showed 98% positive user reviews at the time of writing, though that’s from only about 50 reviews so far.

PPR take: I’m really glad to see this one come back with the original team behind it instead of being farmed out. Destroy All Monsters Melee was a couch-multiplayer staple, and the thing it always lacked was a way to play people who weren’t sitting next to you. Online matchmaking fixes that, and at $29.99 the price feels right for an arena brawler you’ll mostly play in short bursts. The unlock system is the part I’d watch. The old game made you grind to open up the roster, and the “any order” approach sounds friendlier, but solo players will be the ones who find out if it still drags. Either way, it’s a fun week to be a Godzilla fan, since Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds also dropped its Godzilla pack today.