By admin gamerfeels 
Denshattack: the strangest game of 2026 is also one of the most promising
The code to test the game’s press demo was provided by JFGamesPR · Developed by Undercoders · Published by Fireshine Games
There are games whose premise, when you hear it for the first time, makes you wonder if the person telling you about it is pulling your leg. Denshattack is one of them. An arcade action game where you control a train doing kickflips. Developed in Barcelona. With the composer of Sonic Mania. Published by Fireshine Games for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series. And with the director of Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound at the helm.
The more you think about it, the more sense it makes. And that says a lot.
Undercoders is an independent studio based in Barcelona, Spain, and Denshattack is their most ambitious project to date. The game’s name itself is a cultural fusion: densha is the Japanese word for train, and that starting point is no coincidence. Director David Jaumandreu has spoken in several interviews about the team’s reverence for Japanese culture and their desire to represent it faithfully—not as mere decoration, but as the game’s backbone.
Each level broadly follows the real railway networks of each Japanese prefecture, adapted to function like a giant high-speed skatepark. Kyushu, Osaka, Tokyo, Hokkaido… the journey crosses the country from south to north, and each region has its own handcrafted atmosphere: architecture, geography, landscapes, and even ambient sounds. This isn’t a generic postcard Japan; it’s a stylized but recognizable Japan.
The engine chosen to build it all is Unreal Engine 5—a decision that might surprise for a game with this cel-shaded aesthetic, but Jaumandreu justifies it well: UE5’s shader system and particle engine were key to achieving the look they were after. Games like Hi-Fi Rush or Sea of Thieves have already shown that UE5 isn’t reserved for photorealism.
You play as Emi Araki, a ramen delivery girl in a post-apocalyptic world who turns out to have an untapped talent for Denshattack, the underground train-racing sport that gives the game its name. The world surrounding the story deserves attention.
The game system is deeper than its premise suggests. At your disposal is a “trickionary”—a trick dictionary that works just like in Tony Hawk: ollies, kickflips, grinds, manuals, all executed with a train at full speed. The difference from other games in the genre is that here the risk is real: if you land off the rails, you go back to the checkpoint. The train’s physics—bound to the tracks but free in the air—creates a constant tension between spectacle and control.
What’s most surprising is that the game is designed to satisfy both casual players and those who want to squeeze every level dry. You can play through levels just enjoying the rhythm and chaos, or you can obsess over completing all objectives, beating your high score, and discovering every alternate route. That high-but-accessible skill ceiling is exactly what separates great arcade games from those forgotten by the third level.
The comparison to OlliOlli appears in several of the impressions we’ve read, and it makes sense: there’s that same addictive quality that pushes you to retry—not because the game forces you, but because you want to do better.
Performance
We tested it on three different setups. On an integrated processor, specifically a Ryzen 5 3500, the game runs around 30 fps—playable but not ideal for an arcade game that lives on immediacy and speed. There’s room for optimization before the official launch. On the Steam Deck, the experience is equally good without additional tweaks, making it an ideal candidate for portable sessions. On an RX 5700 XT, the game runs completely smoothly, with no notable drops and no need to adjust anything—though that’s expected, it’s important to measure the game under different conditions for users.
What’s missing
The train selector is visually more basic than the rest of the interface—a minor detail that will likely be polished before launch. And as a personal note, a music selector would be a welcome addition: with Tee Lopes, the composer behind Sonic Frontiers and TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge, handling the soundtrack, there’s more than enough material to want to choose what plays during each session.
Verdict
What Undercoders is building in Barcelona is exactly the kind of game the industry needs more often: one with such a clear identity that it’s hard to mistake it for anything else. Denshattack has the creative audacity of Sega classics and the systemic depth of the best score-chasers. The fact that it comes from an independent Spanish studio makes it all a little more special.
Spring 2026. Put it on your list.
Press code provided by JFGamesPR. Based on a development build. Final product may differ.