King of Meat

King of Meat was provided by Amazon Games for review. Thank you!

King of Meat is one of those video game titles that grabbed me from the beginning. Do I want to be a ruler of meat? Of course! King of Meat is more than just a catchy title, but a coop dungeon crawler that packs a ton of features into one enjoyable experience.

Glowmade is comprised of ex-Media Molecule alumni, and the Little Big Planet vibes seep through King of Meat like blood through a gauze bandage. Everything feels vibrant and over-the-top, with excellent production quality and voice acting to boot. When I first saw that it would be $30, I initially had some concerns. This type of game often comes in a free-to-play model with microtransactions. While it may seem high, I’ve found King of Meat’s premium quality design to be worth the asking price. It’s not just your traditional dungeon crawler to enjoy solo or with friends, but an infinite dungeon creator as well.

The premise is simplicity at its finest. In the monster world of Loregok, King of Meat is the only entertainment channel on TV, and the best, of course. Contestants of all walks of life throw everything they have into their deadly dungeons for a chance of glory, sacrificing even their lives. Think of it as a cross between the fantastic dystopian game Showgunners and Fall Guys if it were created by a group of very charismatic psychopaths, mixed with a little bit of Dungeon Keeper. Now, that is every bit as bonkers and brilliant as it sounds, and the game charmed me from the onset.

There are beautifully animated cutscenes with some superb voice acting, great characters to meet, and the dungeon episodes are packed with character and hilarious commentary. You have a relatively short tutorial to get through before the central hub opens up to you, but it doesn’t take very long. While I was more interested in getting into the dungeon-making part, the mechanics come together rather well, and I willingly jumped back into the dungeon runs because I wanted to see what happened next.

The visuals and sound design are fantastic. Just like with cutscenes and voice acting, the production quality on display is impressive, and it's clear how much effort Glowmade has put into all this. The dungeons are full of detail, and it feels like I’m running through a gauntlet created by some monstrous TV studio for survival with all the chaos happening around me. Combine the cartoon graphics with the larger-than-life sound and music, and King of Meat is a pleasurable experience. Combat is quite varied, and while your champion starts as a lowly melee fighter, that loadout expands quickly with a wide range of weapons, skills, and magic. These feel great to use across the board, although I found I gravitated to the melee style of combat most of the time.

Once the main gameplay features are unlocked, the content may seem overwhelming at first. Like many games that follow a 'live-service' model, King of Meat offers a variety of vendors and interactions, including bonus missions, loadouts, weapons, abilities, and a wide range of cosmetics. These can be purchased using in-game currency earned through dungeon runs or through the option to buy currency.

I’m no fan of this, like many others, but I guess it is there if there’s something you really want. However, it doesn’t feel like the game experience is detracted by the cash shop, which was my original concern. There is a certain amount of grind for some items, and I’ve noticed that some options require a good chunk of currency to unlock. That might be an issue down the line, even if it’s not a significant concern currently. However, I still think it’s important to mention.

The big thing I was excited about was the dungeon creator, and given the influence of Media Molecule, as seen in LittleBigPlanet, Dreams, and even the legacy of Lionhead Studios and Bullfrog Productions, I went in expecting great things. The option unlocks quickly, which is refreshing, and it comes with a fully voiced, interactive tutorial that has the same charm as everything else in the game. There’s a serious amount of clout in this dungeon mode, although not everything is unlocked from the get-go. Despite that, this is probably where I spent the majority of my time. As much as I enjoy digging into the dungeon fights for glory and riches, I’m a dungeon baron at heart.

To publish the dungeons for others to play, you need an Amazon Games account, which is an unfortunate limitation. A lot of the unlocks for the Creator mode require other players playing your dungeons, so this might be a deal breaker for some. The base dungeon creator tools have numerous features and props; however, I didn’t feel hamstrung by this, but it is something to consider. You don’t need one to play dungeons that other players have created, however.

To sum things up, there is so much I like about King of Meat. The core gameplay is excellent, the visuals are vibrant, and the voice acting, as well as the overall production quality, are top-notch. You can really feel how much fun Glowmade has had making this game, and that transfers over into both the dungeon building and dungeon crawling segments. The performance is also fairly solid, according to my testing, although Steam Deck performance has yet to be determined due to the game’s prerelease status. My primary concern is longevity. There’s a lot of content in King of Meat, but how things will be 6-12 months down the line is anybody’s guess. As with many live-service style games, this is a challenging road to travel.

King of Meat - Steam Deck Performance

We are working on Steam Deck performance and recommendations, and this will be updated shortly.

Accessibility

King of Meat is available in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Spanish (Latin America). Only Italy and Latin America lack a complete audio translation of these.

I was pretty impressed with the number of accessibility features King of Meat includes. Players can toggle crossplay, streamer mode, toggle photosensitivity’s damage flash effect, turn off motion blur, camera effect, adjust subtitle sizes, speech to text, turn on menu and chat narration, and several toggles to controls in both standard gameplay and creator mode. There are even more included than this, so it is good to see Glowmade put a lot of emphasis on accessibility.

Conclusion

King of Meat is a breath of fresh air for me. I’ve wanted a game like this for some time, especially being able to craft my own wicked dungeons packed with danger and monsters. I’ve had positive experiences with War of the Overworld, but dungeon builders are a scarce breed now. The King of Meat’s high production quality and solid features sold me on it, despite the high price tag and concerns about its live service longevity.

I’m not much of a multiplayer person, but I see myself continuing to play King of Meat even with other people. While that is the main draw, as things usually are with a game such as this, there is more than enough content for solo players to dig into between the challenge dungeons, solo play, and the dungeon creator.

Our review is based on the PC version of this game.

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