First trailers and screenshots for 'Anarchy Reigns'

Known for its over-the-top video games, Platinum Games appears to be heading in a similarly overstated direction with Anarchy Reigns, if initial screenshots and trailers of the online brawler are anything to go by.

Having established itself with the single-player Bayonetta and Vanquish in 2010, the studio is now trying its hand at online multiplayer, in a genre that doesn't yet exist, it says - though fans of the Power Stone or Soul Calibur series may find something familiar here.

Chainsaw-wielding Jack Cayman will return from the Nintendo Wii's hyper-violent gameshow satire MadWorld, but it's the armor-plated Zero and blonde-haired Sasha who appear in the Anarchy's first trailers.

"There are plenty of 'versus multiplayer games' where you face each other down the barrels of a gun," said game director Masaki Yamanaka, who also worked on MadWorld, God Hand, and Resident Evil 4.

" Anarchy Reigns is unique in that [it] allows a large number of players to go fist to fist in online multiplayer battles. The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat are both amped far beyond what you would ever experience in a shooter."

Whether Anarchy Reigns can fulfill its promise remains to be seen, but it'll have a tough job going up against shooters such as Call of Duty, Battlefield 3 and Rage towards the end of the year.

Watch the Zero trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhwwss0NBow
Watch the Sasha trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AKyNs83jZY