We all have days where all you want to do is smash things up and let out the rage monster. Well, Swedish studio Tuxedo Labs, may have just the tonic for such occasions with their new game, Teardown. A sandbox-puzzle game, of sorts, Teardown features a world made of destructible voxels, a bit like Minecraft, where you can destroy anything you see. And a large part of the charm is the range of objects with which you can destroy everything.

You’ll simultaneously unleash your creative destructive sides while under pressure from an alarm system that adds plenty of stakes to the game.

Method to Your Lust for Destruction

There is a campaign running through Teardown‘s destruction sim. You play as the owner of a financially stricken demolition company. You have also been caught doing a few questionable jobs for extra cash.

First person puzzle action shooter adventure genre alarm

The story sees you become entangled between helping the cops’ investigations, and taking on evermore questionable jobs.

It’s an adequate frame around which to hang the destructive fun. However, beyond a few emails before missions, it doesn’t get in the way of the action. The campaign does have a healthy dose of humour, which will encourage some to actually read these.

Alarm Anxiety

The missions of Teardown mostly see you given a set goal; smash and grab or steal X, Y, or Z. It’s never this easy, of course. The gameloop centres on escaping a security system and you cannot disable the alarm.

Most of your loot goals are linked to this security alarm, so once you grab the first item it triggers a 60-second timer for you to get the rest of the job done and get back to your blocky transit van and escape.

The key to doing this is preparation and planning. You have unlimited time to prepare and can use your trusty tools, any vehicles you find, or explosives to create makeshift paths within the levels. Careful planning can see you complete the objectives gratifyingly quickly.

Head of Steam

Things start out easy but quickly ramp up. At first, players simply have to work out how to get from one side of the map to the other in 60 seconds. Teardown features quick and steep learning curve, expecting you to learn the different systems. Trial and error will sometimes be needed to figure exactly what you can, and cannot do.

Teardown gives you a lot of freedom, sometimes a little too much, too soon. And this is perfectly showcased in one of the early missions. The game tasks you with ripping down a house and just drops you in with a hammer, and says “have at it”.

So, you could smash the walls to get the job done or you could spot the explosive gas tanks just to the left of you and throw them at the house and cut the time in half.

Or you could spot the trio of diggers and trucks behind the house, and just jump in one and gun it through the house and flatten it in seconds.

There are always a number of ways to complete a task and that you sometimes have to really think outside the box to get the best results, regardless of how wild the idea is. Early on though, players may not thinking freely enough and immediately jump on the least effective but most obvious tactic.

Contractor

As you complete jobs, you’ll also bag some extra cash along the way from…stealing bits and pieces you’ll find on your travels – which will pocket cash for you to spend on upgrading your tools and gear.

Beyond the campaign there are a few other modes that will also feed your appetite for destruction; like the sand box mode or the challenge with its fetch, mayhem and hunted mission types – these let you off the leash a little bit more than a main campaign.

Problem Build

Teardown was originally a PC title and while the port to the consoles is good overall, there a few elements of the UI that have not been optimised for the new platforms. The presence of a cursor element when selecting your gear or during general navigation suggests some haste in the port.

The voxel art of Teardown gives it a very unique and striking visual style. An impressive lighting system and some great looking effects give it some life. The game handles fire beautifully, for example.

The audio is serviceable, but doesn’t have the same level of creativity or design quality as the visual presentation.

Teardown may hit you as just a smash and grab sim at first, but look under the surface and there is a hard as nails puzzler to be found – that will not be to everyone’s taste, as you’ll spend more time planning jobs than actually doing them.

But it is also endless fun just ripping down buildings and dicking around with all the toys in the toybox, to create endless destruction too.