King of Meat is a lot of things. It’s Dark Souls combat dressed up in a co-op dungeon crawler, a Wipeout game show in a world of rampant corporate commercialism, and a user-generated level creator all rolled into one. A new online venture from Amazon Games, I spent four hours playing King of Meat and chatting with the team ahead of the big Gamescom ONL reveal and came away hopeful. With the co-op antics of Helldivers 2, crash course gameplay of Fall Guys, and soulslike-esque combat, King of Meat keeps itself upright with a really promising skeleton.
Developed by Glowmade and published by Amazon Games, King of Meat is split into two halves. On the one hand, you’re playing through a co-op, Dark Souls-style, dungeon crawler game show that’s chaos incarnate. On the other, you’re making and sharing your own levels in the hope they get into the official rotation. There’s magic, a colorful cast of characters, and greedy corporations – I hope you love overbearing satire, because King of Meat is drowning in it.
I wasn’t given the keys to the co-op game‘s user-generated content tools during my preview, instead focusing on the core dungeon crawling experience. Here, you and three other players work together to clear interconnected rooms of enemies, avoid traps, hit switches, and solve all manner of playful yet fiendish co-op puzzles. You earn plenty of currency to spend on cosmetics and XP to level up, gain new skills, and so on. In concept, it’s a much more involved Fall Guys.
In reality though, King of Meat plays like a diet Dark Souls – and that’s a compliment. You can parry, block, dodge roll, and jump, wield swords and hammers, and make use of a plethora of different abilities. It’s fast and fluid, forgoing the sense of weight FromSoftware is known for and embracing anarchy instead.
“You have to work together to get the best score,” Glowmade studio head Jonny Hopper tells me. “But there’s also that element of playfulness and messing about, but it sort of self-balances.”
In this respect, King of Meat mirrors Helldivers 2 instead of a FromSoft game. You need to work as a team get the best score and reach the end, but nothing beats purposefully demolishing your teammates. While you can do ‘accidental’ headshots and carpet bombs in Helldivers 2, pushing your friends off the edge and throwing lit bombs into their hands is the name of the game in King of Meat. “You can see that you’ve got to cooperate, but we don’t punish you for when you just want to mess about,” Hopper adds. “It’s very deliberate.”
Helldivers 2 thrives on its involved cooperative gameplay loop and low-stakes friendly fire, and King of Meat does the same. The moment-to-moment soulslike gameplay gives you just enough opportunity to show off, but it’s the balance between cooperation and competition that really makes King of Meat shine. We were laughing and screaming in no time, embracing the chaos in a way that felt fresh.
King of Meat might take an arcade-like approach, but it wraps this in meaningful progression. Instead of jumping into every dungeon with the same toolset, you gain new perks, abilities, and passive buffs the more you play. The progression looks suspiciously like a battle pass (I was assured King of Meat will have no such system), but it serves the express purpose of making sure you have a sense of progression.
“We’ve been very, very deliberate in mapping that out and unlocking new moves and skills, so that you can actually feel like an expert,” Hopper tells me, and my preview experience reflects that.
You can enter levels with bonuses like more health, damage buffs against enemies, and an array of abilities, with more available as you level up. It’s a simple progression curve, but one that I don’t doubt will help the game’s longevity. I mean, even the UGC side of King of Meat will have progression for creatives, encouraging both sides of the player base to keep coming back.
While King of Meat doesn’t look like a game with a skill ceiling, it definitely has one. As you and your squad beat levels faster and with higher scores, you get gold trophies that unlock even more progression options. Just like how you work as a squad in Helldivers 2 for more currency, XP, and rewards, King of Meat incentivizes you and your squad to play better, but still wants you to enjoy the chaos.
Between the co-op gameplay, limitless potential of user-generated content, and heavy focus on progression, King of Meat stands a real chance of sitting pretty alongside some of the live service greats. That said, its longevity comes down to how well Amazon and Glowmade support it post-launch, with multiple extra seasons, events, and cosmetic updates planned.
Hopper also tells me King of Meat is a “mid-price premium” game without any pay-to-win elements or a battle pass. Again, this strikes a similar chord to Helldivers 2, which proved that this kind of set up just works.
King of Meat is set to be the perfect game for right now. Elden Ring has refined and popularized soulslike combat, Helldivers 2 has catapulted chaotic live service co-op, and Fall Guys set the stage for crash course shenanigans. It’s a perfect storm (hopefully) propped up by UGC and post-launch support, but only time will tell if it pays off.
