Cohen 1939 characters and killers
You play Elisa Cohen, a widow hunting whoever murdered her gangster husband and broke up his gang. The full game has four playable killers — slide-shooting, focused fire, raven summons and rage — with three of them in the old demo.
Cohen 1939 is a revenge story with a cast of killers on both sides. You spend it as Elisa Cohen, and the studio's launch post promises "four killers, four mayhem-packed playstyles" in the full game. Here is who is who, and what is actually known about how the characters play.
Elisa Cohen — the widow with a list
The story opens with the murder of the leader of the Raven gang — Elisa's husband — on the streets of 1930s Birmingham, as the studio's announcement puts it. Instead of bowing to whoever is scrambling for power, she takes up arms and works through a list of names: "Face fearsome gang leaders, settling the score as you strike off each name on your list." Her full name appears on the game's own character screen, ELISA COHEN, which is where the title of the game comes from.
Four killers, four playstyles
The August 26 launch announcement names the four playstyles on offer:
| Playstyle | What it suggests | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Slide-shooting | Firing while sliding into position | Movement-based aggression |
| Pure focus | A concentration/aim-state kit | Precision over volume |
| Raven summons | Allied ravens entering fights | The raven motif runs through the game's art |
| Burning rage | A rage-state attacker | The most direct of the four |
The demo shipped with three playable characters across Chapters 1 and 2; the full game advertises four killers. The character menu in the official screenshots also shows a skill progression system — one visible skill is called "Bloodthirsty Maneuver" — so expect each killer to grow across a run.
The character screen and progression
From the official screenshots and the demo's patch history, the pieces around the cast are:
- Character skills unlock and level through play; a June patch fixed a skill belonging to a character named Sevinda.
- Weapon unlocks sit in their own menu (Thompson, shotgun, fireaxe and more — see the combat guide).
- A safehouse-style screen appeared between missions in the demo, where loadouts and unlocks could be reviewed.
The people in her way
- The Raven gang's leadership — after the boss's murder, his underlings fight over the wreckage; the game's list of targets grows out of that scramble.
- The Butcher — the demo's boss fight, remembered by players as the hardest thing in the demo (see the chapters guide).
- Gang leaders across the city — "fearsome gang leaders" are promised in the launch post; each is framed as a name to cross off.
What three weeks of reviews say about the cast
Player reports from Steam reviews, checked October 19, 2026:
- The four kits are real, and each plays differently. Reviews name the same four abilities the launch announcement did — slide-shooting, a focus or bullet-time state, the raven summon and a rage state — and describe them as ways to re-read a level rather than as stat upgrades.
- Elisa's raven is the least useful of the four, by consensus. Several reviews call it the weakest kit on the strongest character: time keeps running while the raven is out, so using it mid-fight spends the combo multiplier the scoring is built around. Its defenders use it to scout rooms they have not entered.
- Nobody is locked out of the story. Reviews describe the campaign as Elisa's from beginning to end, with the other killers as tools for replaying chapters rather than alternative storylines.
- Unlocks are scored, not bought. Per-level ranks award medals, and medals unlock skills and weapons back at the safehouse, so a cleared level funds the next attempt even when the score was poor.
FAQ
Who is Cohen in Cohen 1939?
Cohen is the surname of the protagonist: the game's character screen labels her Elisa Cohen, the widow whose husband was murdered at the start of the story.
Can you switch between characters?
The demo let players try three of the killers; the full game ships four. Launch-build reviews describe the four as playable options with their own skills, picked between missions as the story opens them up rather than chosen at the start.
Is the game fully voiced?
The Steam store lists English as the only language with full audio support — Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and Russian ship as subtitles/interface text only.
