These days people are looking for the next big multiplier game. A good example of a fun online multiplayer game is Fall Guys, with its colorful artstyle and goofy gameplay. King of Meat is a platforming game that tries to capture the same feel and while it does for a while, the game loses your interest and starts to feel repetitive.
The main thing I wonder while playing this game is what exactly this game is made for. The combat is very basic and has little to no challenge, with mindless hack-and-slash combat that doesn’t change even with the different weapons you can obtain. The platforming is just as bland, with the barest bones of challenge and you’re left with a feeling that the game within King of Meat is wasted potential for something that should have players more fulfilled when completing dungeons.
The progression curve in King of Meat is designed to keep players hooked and completing one dungeon after the next, but without a variety among the dungeons, or a bunch of different objectives to complete, makes the gameplay loop starting feel like more of the same over and over again. If you play by yourself or with a group of friends, you will get a bit of fun out of the experience, but the fun dies down way too fast to justify buying this game when so many other, better multiplayer games exist.
King of Meat is a shallow experience compared to other modern games blending platforming with combat. The controls are too floaty and feel imprecise, the hit detection feels wonky and weapons lack impact, and the same buttons are used for each weapon type, regardless of their specific attacks, or paths toward mastery. And while you might be able to enjoy King of Meat despite having some shallow gameplay, since each run can be fun and unpredictable when clearing one of the many dungeons the game offers, the reality is that you’ll have seen everything the game has to offer in the first few hours.
When you play a new run in King of Meat it is set up like an episode of the tv show, While the longer, tiered challenges are considered seasons. When you start the game you begin in a hub area where you can talk with the prior champions, all of whom fulfill the prerequisite NPC role as vendors, quest-givers, or challenge trackers. Once you’ve spent any gold in your pocket and secured your desired layout and party composition, it’s finally time to head into the game itself and take on one of a selection of premade dungeons or attempt custom-designed levels from the community.
Regardless of what you choose, the core gameplay loop remains the same. The levels are split up into various categories based on the composition of their rooms. Ultimately it boils down to the same kind of challenges over and over again. The rooms will either focus on wacky platforming challenges, which contains swinging hammers and spike traps, combat challenges, defeating waves of enemies, puzzles requiring you to coordinate with your teammates to stand on pressure plates that raise and lower platforms, or a mix of all the above. Though the settings and levels may change, the enemy types, traversal options, and the difficulty never do. The main objective is to maintain an “approval rating” that grants you increased rewards based on your performance, but after a while the boredom begins to set in, not even a long list of potential unlocks can be enough to make repeated runs feel worthwhile.
Fortunately, the multiplayer mode of King of Meat makes for the occasional bit of fun and hilarity from players’ ability to unintentionally and intentionally sabotage one another during each run. The issues with single-player becomes more serviceable with a friend or two to join you, which makes King of Meat a game that, while it can be played by yourself, needs a dedicated friend group to really get anything fun from the experience.
There’s an entire meta-game at play when it comes to the dungeon creation mode, which is one area where you would expect the game to have a bit of a longer tail. Players who like games that allow you to create things will get enjoyment out of this mode. But much like the main gameplay loop, this creative mode lacks the depth and complexity of any other games with this mechanic.
In conclusion, King of Meat is not objectively a bad experience, but in a year when gamers are practically drowning in one game after another, a title can’t really afford to be this forgettable and basic. I recommend only getting this game if you can get a deal out of it.
Score: 5 out of 10
Reviewed on PlayStation 5