Teardown – Review

Minecraft took the world by storm back in 2011, and it remains a very popular pastime for young and old even now. The voxel-based graphics garnered divisive reactions from many gamers (and parents) around the world, but even so, many developers tried to board the hype train by creating their own voxel-based game. Over the years, many developers failed to create a memorable experience, but once in a while, a company does bring something new to the table. Today we are taking a closer look at Teardown, a voxel-based title that was already popular on Steam thanks to its original concept and satisfying destruction gameplay elements.

Story

In Teardown, you’ll be playing as an entrepreneur who is struggling to keep his business afloat. You’re in debt, struggling to pay the bills, and work is also slow. To improve your situation, you’ll have to tackle shady jobs to bring home the big bucks. You’ll always get a small description at the beginning of each mission, and subsequent missions often refer to earlier events. Even so, there isn’t that much in terms of narrative in Teardown. That being said, the story snippets that are present in the game are still enjoyable, and they serve as a proper framework for the missions you’ll play through.

Graphics

With its voxel-based graphics, many will immediately think of Minecraft, and that would be rather unfair given how good Teardown looks. The environments in the game look amazing, and the moment you start destroying buildings and other objects, it’s so satisfying to see everything crumble and burn. Teardown looks amazing on PS5, and we loved the blend of voxel-based assets and high-quality textures. The developers clearly spent much time designing the different environments, buildings, tools, and vehicles. We were truly impressed with what the game had to offer.

Sound

As a whole, the sound design is not bad. Teardown has an enjoyable soundtrack, although it does fade to the background when you’re destroying your surroundings. The sound effects are quite satisfying, and they provide great feedback for the onscreen onslaught. There is no voice acting present in the game, which is perfectly fine for a title such as this.

Gameplay

Teardown is in essence a voxel-based puzzle game when it comes to its main campaign. Outside of that, the game also contains a hefty number of challenges, mods, and a massive sandbox for you to enjoy. This means you can pick whatever mode you wish to sink your teeth into. If you play without mods and other unlocks, however, you’ll first have to play through the campaign mode to unlock all tools and levels.

In the campaign, you’ll gradually unlock new levels and tools while playing through fairly short missions. The missions in which you have to destroy certain structures are straightforward, the ones that require you to collect items or complete other objectives are a lot harder. In objective-based heist missions, you’ll spend most of your time carefully planning and shaping the stage you’re in to best suit the objective. In most cases, you’ll have to complete multiple goals. After completing certain goals, however, an alarm is triggered, and you are then forced to complete any other objectives and make your escape within 60 seconds. We quite enjoyed this setup, even though a better balance between these missions and simple demolition missions would have been nice.

You can adjust the game to your liking whenever you want. You can choose to activate mods that give you more destructive tools or mobility options. This already makes the campaign considerably easier. You can also adjust base settings, such as a longer escape timer, the option to have access to all levels from the start, or even access to all your tools immediately. While some players may prefer to do things by the book, it’s great that Teardown is so customizable that it allows every gamer to enjoy what the game offers. There is a lot of content to explore, and it’s clear that the developers are still adding more and more items to support the game.

Overall, the controls are great. While some smaller tasks are a lot easier to perform with a mouse and keyboard setup, we never struggled that much with precision controls. It was sometimes perhaps a bit finicky when trying to open doors or place explosives, but we never had big slip-ups during our missions. The vehicle controls were perhaps a bit sluggish at times, but a mod is included to speed up vehicles and make them a bit more reactive.

Conclusion

Teardown may not exactly be what many potential buyers expect due to the time-based heist missions, but it’s still so much fun. The game didn’t fail to entertain us from start to finish, and we spent quite a few hours delving into the side content and the mods that were on offer. If you’re looking for a game that has fun heist and destruction missions, an impressive sandbox, and amusing challenges, we suggest you look no further.

Ibuki

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Aspiring ninja.

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