The Showdown Effect is an action game developed by Arrowhead Game Studios in cooperation with Pixeldiet Entertainment and published by Paradox Interactive for Microsoft Windows and OS X. The game was released on 5 March 2013 via digital distribution on Steam.The game has a strong inspiration in exploitation films of the 1980s and 1990s, with all characters being one of multiple protagonists of these films. Most of the interaction between the characters of the game consists of "one-liners".