King of Meat

Even a decade ago, the idea of playing games with a key drive to gather cosmetics and to build out a collection of options was next to inconceivable. Sure, there were options to unlock camos in shooters and so forth, fun ways to spice up the experience, but the actual gameplay was the main sauce at the time. Then Fortnite came and things changed vastly, to the point where we live in a cosmetic-driven world. I bring this up because while King of Meat is a game about essentially completing obstacle courses, it's also a game that lives and dies on its progression and cosmetic influence.

In previous previews of King of Meat I mentioned that it is a sort of evolution of Little Big Planet and the user-generated content (UGC) systems that Media Molecule designed for that beloved series. It's a good thing to keep in mind because developer Glowmade, the creator of King of Meat, is composed of various Media Molecule veterans, so you could say it's a studio fueled with plenty of experience with UGC projects.

Anyway, now imagine a world with LBP-inspired UGC features except set in a violent, fantasy-styled, Takeshi's Castle-like game show. On paper, it's a baffling array of ingredients that have been thrown into a cauldron here, but in practice it makes sense in a gameplay and premise manner.

You play as an unnamed contender who must increase their fame by jumping into developer or community-made levels in the King of Meat world, where beating the levels and amassing the best score at the same time contribute to the rewards you get. And these rewards come in the form of trophies that are used to unlock more demanding "leagues" (essentially divisions where harder levels are available) and in the form of rather typical challenges - be it defeating enemies, reviving allies, completing levels - all to earn currency that can be spent on cosmetics of a very broad nature.

King of Meat isn't a game with really any central narrative focus, there's next to no story worth paying any attention to, and the gameplay only exists in these handcrafted "dungeons" and in a hub area where you can communicate with other players and buy items from the vendors. It is an egregious example of where live-service games have gone, as it's a project where you mostly have to be driven by a sense of acquiring new cosmetics to divulge any form of meaningful progression. That is unless you have the maturity to simply bask in the gameplay and to appreciate the dungeons and the UGC mechanics that Glowmade has presented.

And here is where I'd like to point out that while you can probably sense that I'm not exactly on-board with the overall idea of King of Meat, the level design and the dungeons that are on offer are actually very well put together. We're talking levels that can be completed in 10-30 minutes, depending on their complexity and how much you want to explore, and which are developed with a deep logic system that enables them to hide many additional secrets. If LBP was a precursor for UGC systems, King of Meat is a clear evolution. Don't expect anything on the lines of Dreams however, as this UGC system is made for dungeon-level-construction and not to bring your wildest dreams to life. Still, the system Glowmade has put together is easy to initially dive into and challenging to master, ultimately providing a wonderful way for the community to run rampant and continue expanding and growing this game over time.

But this is the kicker and the make-or-break factor with King of Meat. Will the community want to stick around for the long haul? This is where I find myself unsure because the core gameplay works - even better in cooperative mode - but I'm not quite as convinced it will keep players wanting to come back time-and-time again. It doesn't have the competitive drive of wanting to beat 99 other players in your lobby in the same way that a cosmetically-fueled battle royale does, nor the intense nature of an arena shooter with silly cosmetics worth hunting. It's a cooperative platformer for the most part with rather rudimentary puzzle solving and combat mechanics, and for me, the gameplay isn't strong enough to encourage me to complete battle passes and challenges to earn currencies and buy skins and emotes, and banners, and whatnot...

Glowmade has ensured that there are plenty of options in regards to usable weapons, enemies to overcome, and additional mechanics to master in the form of the Glory Moves abilities. Plus, the art direction is lovely and colourful, the way that animated videos in the form of television excerpts are used as tutorials and to break up the gameplay is fantastic, the HUD being designed to look like a broadcast overlay is a great concept, and the humour is a delight and very on-brand for the Guildford-based studio. But is all of this enough to make you want to keep returning to King of Meat? I'm not convinced.

It seems like a weird thing to bring up, but I do question the idea to charge just over £20 for this game, not because it's too expensive for what you get, but because of the fact that an entry fee will limit the amount of players that will check it out, compared to if debuted as a "free-to-play" project, and because the progression structure of King of Meat screams the sort of structure that we tend to see in free-to-play games anyhow.

There's just something tonally off about the way that King of Meat is put together and while I won't deny that the gameplay has its moments and that Glowmade has a vision here that could work out and lead to a lot of fun for players around the world, I also can't shake the feeling King of Meat will struggle to retain player attention for the long haul. I hope I'm proven wrong, but following the hours I've clocked in for this review, I'm not exactly chomping at the bit to return for more...