A few weeks ago XboxEra was given the opportunity to be flown over to LA and participate in a preview for a new game releasing under Amazon Publishing. I didn’t know much about the game other than that it was a title made by a smaller team and that it focused on co-op gameplay, but with the Amazon name behind it, I was certainly curious. Well, the embargo is finally lifted and now I can talk all about my experience playing King of Meat, a “hacking, slashing online co-op spectacle”. Did the game show me enough to stick out amongst so many similar titles in the co-op space? Keep reading the XboxEra Preview to find out!
Welcome to King of Meat
Before we had the chance to play the game itself, we were given a short presentation about the history of Glowmade, the developer, the background of the game, its features, and more. Glowmade is a studio founded by industry veterans Jonny Hopper, Mike Green, and Adam Sibbick. If those names don’t ring a bell, the gist of it is that they all worked at Lionhead Studios and decided to build a development team focused on “player creativity, exploration, and community”. Now where they used to work is important for reasons I’ll bring up later, but for now, just know that some of the developers behind the beloved Fable and Black and White series are who formed Glowmade.
After this bit of background, we were finally given our first look at King of Meat. And it… wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. Immediately full of color and vibrant characters, King of Meat is a game focused on completing developer or user-created dungeons with a group of friends (one to four players). This nature of small instance-based levels and the looks of the player characters had me right away thinking of Fall Guys, albeit with a horror medieval spin to it. One thing that was stressed again and again during the presentation was that one of Glowmade’s core tenets is “give power to players”. It was stressed that while the dungeons we’d play through today were made by the development team, they did so using the exact same tools that players will have access to in the create mode. The presentation continued to give some backstory to the world, how you play as a contestant in a TV show etc, but then it was time to play it ourselves.
Hack and Slash Away!
I played King of Meat for roughly two or so hours with three others. Two other invitees to the preview, and one Amazon employee who helped guide us through the game. We pretty much instantly loaded into our first dungeon through queuing up a “ranked league”, which are leagues with dungeons hand-picked by the development team and probably the quickest way to just play the game. There are a few other options here when choosing what to play, such as “Trials”, which are developer-made maps meant to really test you, and “Discovery”, which is where you can really explore and try out user-made levels with some nifty search tools. After picking the league and voting for which dungeon of three to play (each player has one vote), we finally started to play.
So King of Meat is a primarily melee combat-focused game, though every player does have a crossbow to use for distant enemies or targets. The gameplay is fast-paced and has combos to learn and master for each weapon that you can equip. In this preview, we only had access to two weapons, the sword and shield, and the hammer, but there are clearly more weapon types to unlock with the full game. I’ll touch more on that in a bit, but in the two or so hours we had, we played through a good variety of different dungeons. Some required us to simply reach the end, others that had us kill enough mobs to open doors, or survive two minutes while legions of skeletons attacked us, and more. On top of the weapon you choose, you also have “Glory Abilities”, which are stronger moves with longer cooldowns that can help turn the tide of battle. From a black hole that sucks in enemies, to a giant horse hoof stomping everything to death, to a massive belch that slams both enemies and allies far away, it was clear that King of Meat has a good amount of variety in combat. Especially considering that every weapon has its progression path to unlock more combos and more.
Progress, Progress, Progress!
Every dungeon has a bronze, silver, and gold rating, based on how well you performed. This usually means keeping the “crowd meter” high, which is a bar at the top of the screen that goes up if you play well (variety in moves, destroy everything you see, etc) and goes down if you get hit or have a lot of downtime. You’ll want to aim for gold whenever you can as it’s the fastest way to progress through the battlepass-like system that you see after every dungeon. Essentially it’s this horizontal bar that determines when you unlock more weapons, get currency to purchase cosmetics or stronger glory moves, and more. The gist of it is, that more is better.
Though speaking of dungeons and four player co-op, I found it interesting that Lionhead’s last game before being shuttered, Fable Legends, was also a game focused on four-player co-op, except this time around instead of having an active 4v1 situation, the fifth person makes the dungeon beforehand for others to challenge. This is a much better shift on the idea while still keeping that same spirit of co-operative dungeon exploration alive.
One last thing to mention about the dungeons is that they’re not always combat-focused. While the fighting in King of Meat did feel good, I was glad to see some variety with both platforming and puzzle-centric creations. Glowmade gave a very large amount of control in their create mode (which we didn’t get to see or play with), as some of the dungeons we completed had puzzles based on switches to press or not press, platforms to jump to, traps to avoid, and more. It’s this variety, I think, that will be the lifeblood of the game and keep people coming back for more.
Stylized and Clean
King of Meat takes place in a hyper-capitalist world where Komstruct (a massive corporation) and influencer clout is what matters most. With this backstory also comes a fun and visually striking cast of characters. There isn’t too much to know about these individuals yet, but the 2D art used did a great job of giving each of them some instant personality. After you finish with a dungeon, you go back to the “Plaza”, the central hub where you can interact with various NPCs, purchase new items, check on your various progressions, and even meet other players walking around. It reminded me quite a bit of The Tower in the first Destiny, but less somber. As you look around you may even notice the world react to your character, such as giant banners on the coliseum with your image and name, or an in-universe TV show. There’s a lot of potential with this hub and I’m looking forward to seeing it play out with the full release.
I mentioned this earlier, but King of Meat reminded me of Fall Guys in more ways than one. Especially in the sheer amount of ways you can customize your character. But while Fall Guys feels like a group of disconnected minigames, King of Meat was able to channel that same fun frantic energy amongst friends while also tying it all together in one cohesive game. Are you done with one dungeon? Okay cool, let’s run around the Plaza for a few minutes checking in on the NPCs (who also have some unique dialogue every time you speak to them), before diving right back into another.
A Potential Mass Hit
King of Meat has the potential to truly blow up in the best possible way, but in my opinion, it’ll rely on a couple of things. The first of which is the monetization. King of Meat is designed as a live service game first and foremost and is also a buy-to-play title. I don’t know yet the exact price of the game, but it’s certainly going to be a big factor in its success. From what I played the currency used to purchase cosmetics was purely in-game, and I didn’t see an option for any MTX. That being said, I also can’t say for certain that they won’t exist when the game releases.
The other is the sheer exposure a game like this will need to succeed. Glowmade made it their top priority to empower players to create their own levels and to be as creative as possible. They even have a premium-type currency that can be used to “tip” level creators (though I do not know if this is also an in-game currency, or if it requires real-life money). Thankfully with Amazon behind the team, I don’t think marketing will be an issue.
I really enjoyed my time with the game and I could absolutely see myself playing King of Meat regularly with a group of friends when it eventually releases on the Xbox Series, PS5, Steam, and Nintendo Switch. While there are some uncertainties still regarding future monetization, with 100+ Glowmade created levels at launch and a robust set of tools for players to make their own, King of Meat is shaping up to be a “must watch” game as it gets closer to release.
All flight, hotel, and travel expenses were paid for by Amazon PR
