Attack on Titan 3 revamps its combat controls with Focus Mode

Koei Tecmo is coming back to cover Attack on Titan with one more game that will cover the entirety of the now-concluded series' storyline. Aptly titled Attack on Titan 3, the company had also set up playable demo builds for it at Tokyo Game Show 2026. I was able to directly check out this demo, which particularly highlighted revamps to the combat system in the upcoming iteration.

This demo basically placed me in control of the default protagonist avatar, as I accompanied Levi in pursuing Zeke inside a forest at nighttime. After taking care of a few lesser Titans, the demo stage would conclude with a short-timed boss fight against the Beast Titan.

If you have grown familiar with Attack on Titan 2's combat system, be advised that this demo has a mostly different control scheme. Besides the obvious evasion button (X on PlayStation layout), the other notable control that may feel close enough is when you would try to snipe and launch a sneak attack on a Titan with the R2 button. This feature is now called Focus Mode, and it has become the primary method to launch precision attacks against Titans. You can also activate this while airborne, and the game's time will slow down almost to a stop so that you can more precisely aim for a Titan's specific body part. Whether you want to target a limb first or to go straight to the nape for the kill is up to you.

Instead of pressing Square, you now hold L2 to have your character glide through the area with anchors. While you can more quickly dispatch small and regular-sized Titans with pinpointed attacks on their napes, large and boss-class Titans will need more than that. The latter will need to be incapacitated first by Breaking them with a flurry of attacks on their other body parts, which can be done without having to go into Focus Mode.

In addition, you also don't have to worry about timing the attack button anymore. From the moment you start launching an attack with the Square button, it is pretty much guaranteed to land a hit... unless a Titan somehow stops you with an attack of its own.

This combat stage demo was just a small sneak peek at what Attack on Titan 3 will offer in its entirety, though. Now that the whole Attack on Titan story has since concluded, I am looking forward to having my own avatar character live through the entirety of the series' storyline instead of disappearing midway like in the second game... Although I am still wondering whether we would be able to redesign our avatar especially when the timeskip kicks in to match up with how other existing characters age up.

Barring any possible delays, Attack on Titan 3 should be available worldwide in a couple more months more on December 10 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Switch 2, and PC via Steam.