Drag Her! a Fighting Game Featuring Real-Life Drag Queens, is Coming Soon

The drag queens of RuPaul’s Drag Race and Boulet Brothers Dragula are finally taking their rivalries to the next level: the battle arena. In an upcoming fighting game, appropriately named Drag Her!, players put on the wigs and heels of real-life drag queens and literally slay.

Like the classic 2D fighting games of yore (Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter), Drag Her! features a roster of iconic stars duking it out against a backdrop of vibrant stages. But there’s more queer twists to the formula than sickening combatants. In this game, matches are called “spats,” a KO is a “K-HO,” and weapons can range from your own wig to a hammer you’ve kept tucked away.

Related:

You Can Play as a Stressed Healthcare Worker Who Happens To Be a Pigeon in “Fall of Porcupine”

Players take on the role of Finley, a pigeon doctor looking after the town of Porcupine despite the crippling flaws in the healthcare system.

Unlike classic fighting games, the spats are just that—playful cartoonish fun as opposed to hardcore violence. While there’s no shortage of special moves and combos, we’re not here for gory fatalities. Drag Her! is aiming for a vibe closer to the shows that inspire it—friendly competition and silly queer entertainment you can laugh at with friends.

The main roster of licensed fighters are Alaska 5000, Asia O’Hara, BenDeLaCreme, Kim Chi, Laganja Estranja, Landon Cider, and Manila Luzon. Players can also call assists (or “a sis”) to aid them in battle, and that growing list includes Jiggly Caliente and Tammie Brown. Meatball, meanwhile, provides the running commentary on every spat.

In Drag Her! players can werk the fighting ring together or alone, through AI battles and local/online multiplayer. The single-player campaign will involve a career mode, which according to the game’s Kickstarter, “will have you chart your meteoric rise to B-list stardom, pitting drag queen versus drag queen in a rich narrative romp that has you rise to the top amongst a pile of bottoms.”

From the very start of its crowdfunding campaign early last year, Drag Her! has captivated fans, achieving its fundraising goal in barely a month. The game has since been picked up by ID@Xbox’s Developer Acceleration Program, which champions underrepresented game makers, and it was recently shown off at the Xbox Extended Summer Showcase.

In a Q&A with Xbox Wire, developer Fighting Chance shared plans for an upcoming beta in August, with a full launch slated for early 2024. In the meantime, players can get their face beat in the free demo for Mac and PC.