Aggro Crab, the developer of hit co-op game Peak and arbiter of "friendslop" (although we're still undecided on that phrase here at PC Gamer), have released a demo for its new game for Steam Next Fest—and it's already utter chaos. Though it's of a different flavour.
Crashout Crew sees you and up to three other mates tasked with delivering a specific number of items into the back of trucks before they haul off without their precious cargo. Which sounds simple enough, except this workplace is the furthest thing from OSHA-compliant it can possibly be. It's OSHA-hostile.
See, if you take enough damage by bumping into walls/each other—or, uh, a meteor strike—you crash out, becoming uncontrollable as you throw a fit in your forklift and bump into goddamn everything. Which, to be fair, is a measured response to being hit by a rock from space.
Whereas Peak is a battle of attrition, slowly trying not to let poor choices ruin your day, Crashout Crew is a delicate plate-spinning operation that's been factory-designed to come apart at a moment's notice.
You'll start off doing comms-clearing callouts and barking "behind!" like you're on The Bear. But all verbal communication skills melt away when you're crashing out, there's piles of honey everywhere, and someone (me) put bees in the road. In one instance, I used a boost pad—which I placed there—and slammed straight into a meteor strike.
I should probably talk about why there are meteors, huh? Crashout Crew follows a Lethal Company-style structure. Each round sees you punted back to the company store to buy upgrades with your hard-earned bucks, like grippy hands or a sick-ass spoiler.
They also occasionally force a modifier upon you, voted on by committee. For example, the lights might randomly turn off, or ghosts might start flinging objects around. I have now yelled: "The ghosts are taking my bees!" more than once, which is more than I ever thought I would.
These modifiers also include meteors. Like, from space. It's incredibly cruel.
While I sometimes found Peak frustrating, since a run could use up over an hour of your time just to be doomed before you got to the summit—Crashout Crew has a quick enough cycle that I found myself cackling with delight whenever things went wrong. The first domino falls, and your entire operation collapses afterwards.
Someone gets hit by a meteor, then they drop a bunch of crates in the road, which your friend smashes into, getting swarmed by bees—they crash out, destroying all of your hard-earned stock in an uncontrolled rampage. Meanwhile, your friend accidentally sends the wrong amount of bees (which deletes the items you mistakenly sent and causes you to instantly crash out) on the other side of the map. It's a great time. You can try out Crashout Crew for yourself on Steam right now.
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