Published , by Sam Chandler
Published , by Sam Chandler
Remember back in the day when you would test out your new PC build by seeing how it handled Crysis? It feels like Teardown is this generation’s version of putting your PC through its paces. Where Crysis excelled in visuals, Teardown pushes the boundary of what’s possible with physics while still looking gorgeous thanks to a stylized voxel design and ray tracing. But the game is more than just looks, it’s got a shed full of tools and asks you to find the best way to blow up a sandbox.
As Chris Jarrard discussed in his review of Teardown, the game is less of your traditional, heavily scripted experience and more akin to Garry’s Mod of yore. While there is a story, it’s really a string of missions taking players to new locations to solve some problem, all of which typically involves destruction on a building-sized scale.
Though the narrative is merely a helpful piece of wiring to follow to the detonator box, the real appeal is approaching a heist in your own way. Need to gain access to the top story of the building? Find a set or stairs and knock down any door that stands in your way. Alternatively, you might want to drive a crane full-speed into the side of the building and watch the carnage rain down as you ascend to your goal.
But the chaos isn’t limited to your ingress. Once you’ve secured the objective a timer starts counting down, demanding that your egress happens sooner, rather than later. So while your carefully planned assault might go off without a hitch, the escape plan might look like an absolute, abject disaster.
No matter how you approach the situation in Teardown, it’s going to look absolutely phenomenal no matter what you do. This is thanks to the way in which the world is designed using tiny voxels. Each element of every object you see, be it the wall, floor, or vehicles, is constructed using a small cube. These break, bounce, burn, and crumble based on one of the best displays of physics in any game to date. There’s something hypnotizing about how fire spread, smoke and steam billows, and rubble moves in the game.
Teardown stole our hearts this year. The game manages to capture the pure joy of watching perfectly aligned dominoes fall, a house of cards tumble, or a log in a fireplace combust. There’s just something so satisfying about the destruction on offer here, and what’s more, the game features Steam Workshop support. It was a clear choice in our books. Teardown has won the Shacknews Best PC Game of 2022 award. Congratulations, Tuxedo Labs!
Check out our Year of the Games: 2022 article to see all of the other Shacknews Awards that have been announced so far.