Gori: Cuddly Carnage Is Now My Most Anticipated Game in August

If you haven't yet, follow us on X (Twitter) or Mastodon to know when we post new articles, and join our Reddit or Subscribe to us on YouTube to check out our content and interact with our awesome community. Thank you for supporting us!

I'm going to be honest: I had no idea what to think of Gori: Cuddly Carnage when I first saw it. It looks extremely weird on the surface, and while it looked like it had extremely vibrant visuals, which I love, the weirdness worried me about the game's quality. I wanted to preview it regardless, though, and after playing through the areas I was allowed to, I am so happy to say I was wrong, and I am in love with this game.

For some context, you play as Gori, a synthetic cat who has been branded a terrorist by the company that made him. Now, with humanity destroyed, it is up to Gori, his sentient hoverboard F.R.A.N.K., and his A.I. CH1-P to slay an army of mutating, undead unicorns that are out to get you. It's probably one of the weirdest premises I have seen in a game recently, but man, it is awesome.

Part of what really makes it so great is the visuals. The world is definitely in a more sci-fi stage right now, but the vibrant aesthetics are just glorious to look at. It really hit me when I was skating around, and I jumped down into an area with two pink hearts, a green clown door, and some pink and orange bloodstains on the ground. It may look too vibrant to some, but these visuals really shine on the OLED screen of the Steam Deck, and I couldn't stop looking.

I also want to mention the humor, which had me cracking up at times. F.R.A.N.K. is all over the place and constantly cursing and seems to want everyone else around them to die. All curse words are beeped, which makes it even funnier. CH1-P, on the other hand, is dramatic and seems depressed. In the first scene of the game, he is the AI in your spaceship, and when his hull is breached, he starts complaining about being hurt and his insides coming out. It's hilarious and sets the tone for the adult humor sprinkled throughout. I loved it.

One of the reasons the vibrant colors in Gori make sense is the overall comic styling sprinkled throughout. This is apparent in the UI/menus, as well as the words that appear over the enemies when you attack them, but it all feels like it was ripped out of a comic book. It all weaves in together really well, and again, it is just so beautiful. And the soundtrack goes along so well with it, really highlighting the experience and making it feel unique.

The gameplay loop is also quite addicting. The combat is similar to Devil May Cry, so you will be running around open areas and able to attack enemies with your hoverboard (with spikes growing out of it). A rating system goes up when you attack and diversifies the type of attacks you use, and boy, are they flashy. The Unicorns will usually die from being sliced, but as you upgrade Gori and gain new weapons, you will expand to different attacking styles, like smashing them with a ball and chain-like extension to your board. Some enemies need specific attacks to hurt them, so getting accustomed to using different attacks will be helpful.

You can also boost and go fast on your hoverboard. This helps with traversing or getting to new areas faster but can also change your attacks. For example, you can boost your ball and chain to charge it up and smack the ground hard, hurting and killing enemies in a specific area. And with how flashy these attacks are, it can feel extremely rewarding to pull attacks like this off and see the bodies of the Unicorns flying all around you in a bloody mess.

Outside of combat, there is some traversal to get around. You can grind on rainbow-colored rails and wall slides on billboards, and while it feels a little floaty, it makes sense since you are on a hoverboard. There are collectibles you can pick up as well that unlock new filters, outfits, and fur styles for Gori, which is neat, but the combat is what takes center stage for the game. And it should because the combat is good, gory, explosive fun.

Thankfully, the game is so much fun and should be very playable on the Steam Deck.

Gori: Cuddly Carnage - Steam Deck Performance So Far

I played through the preview of Gori on my Steam Deck, and I was quite impressed with how it is so far. I played on the highest-quality preset, and it was holding at 60 FPS in a lot of areas. I did end up finding some areas that dropped it, and I felt like 45 FPS and a 45/90Hz rate was the perfect spot. Gamepad controls work exceptionally well and everything else just fits perfectly for portable play.

I did encounter a small issue when changing settings, though. Gori supports different upscalers (FSR 3, DLSS, and XeSS), and while the first and third options do work, they tend to react weirdly when switching to and from them. If you select FSR 3 in performance mode and then turn the upscaler off, it will not turn the upscaler off. I ended up playing the game at FSR 3 Native Anti-Aliasing because that looked the best, and I am not sure how to turn off upscalers after turning them on.

Even still, the game runs wonderfully, and I think it will be fantastic.

When all is said and done, Gori: Cuddly Carnage completely surprised me. I wasn't expecting such a great game to come out of this odd package, but it's shaping up to be phenomenal. If you are a fan of over-the-top action games with hilarious humor, I would not miss out on this one!

Gori: Cuddly Carnage will be released on August 29th and you can wishlist it now on Steam.

If you enjoyed this article, check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that will help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got you covered!