This soup game looks hot

Hungry yet? No? I'll check back in after you've checked out the new trailer for Soup Pot, a hunger-inducing simulated kitchen that'll let you cook up any meal you fancy.

First announced back in March, Chiken Club's soup 'em up returned in last night's Day of the Devs stream with some big news. More than just being a hunger-inducingly satisfying soup simulation, your virtual kitchen will expand with a whole range of appliances to cook with. Fry, grill, and boil up some truly mouth-watering digital food, then watch as the world responds to your culinary genius.

It's frankly unfair how good games are getting at rendering food these days. Final Fantasy 15's roadside dinners were upsettingly good looking, after all. But the indie space is where the real culinarians live—from the authentic South Asian meals of Venba, to Nour's explosion of colour, sound and ramen.

What I love about Soup Pot, though, is how committed Chiken Club is to making its meals as authentic as possible. The game comes with 100 recipes that should (ideally) map back into the real world. Find yourself salivating over a particularly spicy in-game dinner? Soup Pot wants nothing more than for you to take that recipe and try it for yourself, building from a wealth of South Asian and Filipino cuisine.

You can also just fry up your own creations, watching the delicious 3D food renders simmer up into something entirely new—or charring a poor sausage into oblivion. That said, Soup Pot wants you to get creative. There are no hard failure states, and you're free to plate up and present your meals in any way you see fit.

Most importantly of all, though? You don't even have to do the washing up when you're done.

20 years ago, Nat played Jet Set Radio Future for the first time, and she's not stopped thinking about games since. Joining PC Gamer in 2020, she comes from three years of freelance reporting at Rock Paper Shotgun, Waypoint, VG247 and more. Embedded in the European indie scene and a part-time game developer herself, Nat is always looking for a new curiosity to scream about—whether it's the next best indie darling, or simply someone modding a Scotmid into Black Mesa. She also unofficially appears in Apex Legends under the pseudonym Horizon.