Welcome to the Underrated Gems, a brand-new review series for underrated games. Every other week,, I will be reviewing a game I consider to be Underrated between all the games that are released. These games would be considered not that well known in the mainstream media, hidden gems, and most importantly: just Underrated. All these games will be reviewed on my Steam account unless otherwise stated. This week, the game seen is pretty much a rage room simulator if you don’t have the money to go to one.
Ever wonder what it would be like to just “teardown” the environment in whatever way you please? (wait that sounds bad). What about trying to go on “jobs” that have clients requesting your…services? Well, if you ever decide to have that thought go to your brain for whatever reason, Tuxedo Labs has the game for you. That’s because on April 21, 2022, Tuxedo Labs released the title: Teardown, and allowing you to demolish, destroy, and especially teardown whatever you please (I promise this isn’t a game for psychopaths).
Gameplay
Teardown is a sandbox-level video game, featuring a fully destructible world filled with beautiful, voxel environments. As in, everything can be destroyed, from entire cities, to huge mega malls, everything can be demolished in any way you’d please. The plot of the game has you running a demolition company that ends up being swayed by clients to use your “services” against other people. What follows is you traveling to a different level environment, that requires you either destroy, steal, and most importantly teardown whatever you see.
In order to do this, you’ll definitely need a special set of tools. Which is why after you complete a mission, you’ll be given access to new sets of tools. These tools can feature traditional construction tools, weapons of mass destruction, or even custom user mod tools that can really start to tear down things. Throughout each level, there will be an objective for you to complete. Sometimes it’s just to just steal things that were originally stolen from your clients. Sometimes it’s just to wreak havoc on the entire environment, just making things explode wherever you go. The tools you are given will be determinant to the cause, rarely are some helpful, while most others are destructive. But the moment you start to do something a bit suspicious, the police will already be informed, and you’ll only have a minute in order to complete the task, then get the hell out of there. Which is why even if you have powers of destruction on your side, you’ll need to be able to plan out how you will ruin things to your advantage, and to definitely keep on restarting after you fail every time.
If you manage to get through the main game, there are still other things that allow you to teardown the game even more. For starters, you have a sandbox, in which you can replay many levels, to either destroy as much, or complete a series of tasks in a given amount of time. The mods don’t stop at just tools, full on user-created levels are featured, in which you can play their own set of missions, or once again just destroy it all. There are even special game mods that can be added, like waves upon waves of (in)destructible robots hunting you in each level, or dinosaurs for that matter. And if you still aren’t satisfied, there are DLC level packs coming soon, each expanding upon the lore of the game, and adding in many more tools to service your clients…as in wreaking even more havoc across the globe.
Overall
Teardown has a lot to offer for many types of players, whether you want an interesting storyline with lore, or just for players to destroy whatever they can fathom. The vast voxel environment allows for not only destruction but for planning and trying to figure out how one can be able to successfully complete levels without busting. The inclusion of user-generated content allows for even more replayability and ways to just keep on tearing down the entirety of each level, giving players a satisfying and stress-relieving experience. Just make sure to get out of there within that one-minute timeframe, because trying to plan an entire heist within about three minutes, is a lot harder than it seems.
