Developer: Tuxedo Labs
Publisher: Tuxedo Labs
Steam Deck Compatibility?: Verified
Rrp: £24.99 (Humble) £25.99 (Steam)
Released: 21st April 2022
Available on: Humble and Steam
Played Using: Mouse and Keyboard
Approximate game length: 20 hours +
In this review I will be covering the campaign mode, however, most of my points still apply to the other modes.
Set in the fictional municipality of Löckelle (which is assumed to be in Sweden) Teardown is a heist simulator with destructible voxel terrain. Just in case you aren’t aware of what a voxel is, the best way I can describe it is that it’s a three dimensional pixel. The choice of using voxels is an unusual one but I think it works in this game’s favour both stylistically and functionally.
In the campaign mode you play as the owner of a demolition business that is going through hard times. In order to make ends meet you take on missions that aren’t strictly legal such as stealing expensive cars from a mansion, industrial espionage and destroying property.
With each mission you are given an unlimited amount of time to prepare your heist, allowing you to blow holes in walls or position vehicles in just the right places. That is unless an alarm gets triggered which is usually done in one of two ways; the fire alarm goes off (explosions will sometimes leave fires) or you trigger the alarm by picking up your target.
Once an alarm is triggered you have sixty seconds to collect your objectives and get to your escape vehicle, if you exceed that time or not get all the objectives then you fail the mission and will need to do it all over again.
Let’s go back to before an alarm is triggered, as I mentioned you have unlimited time. As such this also gives you ample opportunity to search for valuables. You see, these missions don’t give you money, or at least no money you can use. Any valuables that you find within the missions (you’re already doing something highly illegal, what’s the harm in some petty theft?) are immediately converted into cash that you can use. What on? Upgrades people, upgrades! Most of the tools that you unlock can be upgraded to become more useful or at least used more often.
As I mentioned earlier, you don’t get cash from completing missions, not even if you get any optional targets. But what completing missions (and getting optional targets) does do is add a score that goes toward your rank. As your rank increases more tools will become unlocked.
You’ll find yourself sometimes returning to a location with a different mission, however, things will have changed. Sometimes the changes are subtle such as the security has increased or rooms have been renovated, other times the changes are much more grand.
Something I quite like is that as you complete missions your starting hub changes going from what is essentially a barely furnished warehouse to a home I honestly would love to live in. It’s a rather small detail that has no function whatsoever other than to show that your life is improving, but I like that.
I had been greatly interested in this game for a while but was put off by it being in early access (I tend to avoid early access games until they have been fully released as it feels unfair to review a game that is still in development).
This game can be quite picturesque, the developers have made use of lighting and depth of field to great effect even with the somewhat blocky look of the world. I don’t really have much else to say about it other than that I would sometimes find myself just looking around and enjoying the scenery.
Along with the campaign mode there are sandbox and challenge modes. I’m not generally a fan of sandbox myself as I find I need a direction or story to work with. It’s part of the reason I don’t get on with Minecraft and other such games.
I really enjoyed my time with this game, puzzling out how to make the most efficient use of my tools and seeing how I can make the environment work to my advantage. The game also goes on much longer than I anticipated, when I finished the first ‘part’ I thought that was it only to discover there was a lot more afterward.
