At first glance,Deliver At All Costsseems fairly straightforward. Players take the role of a delivery driver moving cargo through a highly destructible environment, resulting in a zany, lighthearted, and chaotic romp through 1950s America. While those first impressions are mostly accurate,Deliver At All Costsbecomes a much deeper and more engaging experience as players progress.
It didn’t take long for fans to recognize the old-school appeal of Studio Far Out’s debut game. As soon as the first trailers dropped,Deliver At All Costsdrew comparisons to theGTAseriesfor its action-packed, driving-focused gameplay and irreverent sense of humor. The utter chaos of sending civilians flying and crashing into all manner of obstacles also brings back memories of early 2000s arcade titles, and the game does live up to these expectations upon first booting it up. But the more you dive into it, the more you realize that these familiar elements are just the tip of the iceberg.
On the surface,Deliver At All Costsis a goofy and unserious driving simulator where the goal is to deliver items, but the real fun is to break everything along the way. As the narrative unfolds, though, it becomes a surprisingly engaging story of government conspiracies, corporate greed, and how far people are willing to go to get what they want. Rest assured, though, the real fun is still breaking everything along the way, and the game lets you do that in spades.
Deliver At All Costs Is Ridiculous in All the Right Ways
The basic premise behindDeliver At All Costs' gameplay is simple. As newly hired delivery man Winston Green, you’ll move all manner of objects from Point A to Point B, but the objects get increasingly ludicrous and virtually every object in the world breaks at the slightest touch. It takesCrazy Taxi’s stunt-heavy driving gameplayand turns it up to 11 through unruly payloads, including everything from a live marlin to a live bomb, and an environment that lets you, even encourages you, to crash through everything.
Even the gentlest of bumps will cause buildings to collapse. Turning slightly too hard could cause a loose pile of items in the truck bed to come pouring out. While some games aim for the physics to be as believable as possible,Deliver At All Coststhrows reality to the wind in the name of wreaking havoc, and it’s an absolute blast. There’s a staggering amount of attention to detail and interactivity, but instead of using those mechanics for realism,Deliver At All Costsleans into absurdity, and it makes for a truly hilarious experience.
The game makes its sheer destruction stand out all the more through humorously understated reactions from the characters within its world. People don’t seem to blink twice when Winston’s pickup topples an apartment building a block down the road. Slamming into a pedestrian and sending them rag-dolling 50 feet into the air will elicit an “I’m walking here!” rather than screams of horror. That applies outside the car, too. Shoving a random civilian off a roof will anger them, but they’ll usually go about their day as normal after shoving Winston back.
Vehicle Handling Is Precise and Satisfying
The vehicles inDeliver At All Costshandle well, perhaps surprisingly so, given how crashing into things is such a prominent part of the gameplay. Like manynon-racing games with great driving mechanics, speed isn’t the name of the game here as much as precision. It takes only small adjustments to accelerate and steer all the in-game vehicles, and that responsiveness means two things: one, getting the hang of the controls and nailing a difficult route feels rewarding, and two, it’s easy to overdo it and destroy things.
Deliver At All Costs’s physics really shines when carrying a large, awkward truck load or towing something behind the vehicle. These additions can throw off the steering and take some getting used to, which amplifies the same concept that makes the regular driving great. It’ll feel wonderful once you learn to control it, but the mistakes and accidental destruction along the way are hard not to smile at.
Some Missions Feel Repetitive After a While
As fun as driving, crashing, and exploding are, some missions don’t take long to get old. The game’s mechanics are rich enough and there’s enough variety between the missions thatDeliver At All Costsnever really gets stale as a whole, but the same can’t be said for individual levels. Many see Winston repeating the same type of delivery over a few steps, and their novelty can wear off after the third or fourth cycle.
It’s possible to make the more repetitive missions feel more exciting by taking a different approach at each step. you’re able to attempt to be more or less destructive, take new routes between points, or give yourself unique challenges, like attempting to drive backwards the whole time or make it through without any mishaps. However, the game never pushes players to do so. On the one hand, that’s good for player freedom, but on the other, it leaves some levels feeling a little overdone by the end if you never experiment.
Deliver At All Costs' World Is as Pretty As It Is Dangerous
Some of thebest open-world games opt for stylized visualsover hyperrealism, andDeliver At All Costsis no different. It has a warm, hand-painted look to it that makes the world of St. Monique and beyond feel like something out of a retro postcard. That’s appropriate, too, because the game is both a celebration and a critique of the idyllic picture of 1950s Americana that pop culture often portrays.
The music is just as stereotypically ’50s and ’60s as the visuals. The upbeat sounds of surf rock and doo-wop feel sensible for the setting and noticeably mismatched from the actual occurrences on screen. It’s a funny feeling when the music is telling you to hang loose or cut a rug down by the soda fountain when you’re pummeling your way through pedestrians and laying waste to the city’s infrastructure. That contrast makes the hectic gameplay feel all the more humorous, but it also serves an important story purpose as a plot full of deception and surprise unravels.
The Painted Visuals Look Better from Afar
WhileDrive At All Costsis gorgeous during real-time moments, it’s less so in its cutscenes. Not every game needs to look amazing, and there are plenty ofgood games with purposely bad graphics, but the PS2-era movements and textures in the cutscenes can break the immersion a little. The art style works well from the zoomed-out distance of actual gameplay, but feels a bit jarring up close, especially in terms of characters' mouth animations and facial expressions.
Some cutscenes take a different approach that works better. Instead of playing out as a mini-movie, they’ll play clips of dialogue over still images to create a sort of multisensory comic book. These stills lean further into the game’s painted aesthetic, so while they may not be able to show exciting movements or fast-paced action, they feel like a better fit. It’s not a huge note, but it’s unfortunate thatDeliver At All Costsdidn’t go that route for all of its cutscenes.
The Story of Deliver At All Costs Is Surprisingly Gripping
What the cutscenes lack in aesthetic appeal, they make up for in content. As silly as the gameplay can be, the story is far from lighthearted. It feels, fittingly, like a film noir, with each new detail revealing that the mystery is far bigger than it initially appeared, and that characters are in over their heads with something they don’t understand.
As the story opens up, so does the gameplay.Deliver At All Coststakes place across three acts, with each act placing Winston in a new environment. Each new area builds on the mechanics and options of what came before it, and while it’s far from thebiggest map in gaming, it has a lot more to offer than it seems at first. It’s both a great way for the game to ensure it remains interesting and a solid echo of how its narrative plays out.
Even the cartoonishness of the destructible environments serves a story purpose. The plot, as intriguing as it is, is ridiculous. It’s engaging and keeps you on the edge of your seat, but it’s far from feeling realistic, and it doesn’t need to be. It may not be believable as a real-world story, but in a world where buildings fall apart left and right and delivery companies get back at each other by plowing into their vehicles? It makes a strange sort of sense within itself.
That said, some moments where the narrative tries to be sentimental and serious don’t work in light of the gameplay. It’s hard to take someone talking about the value of family seriously after running over a family and your character saying nothing more than “whoops.” Overall, though, the ideas the game puts forth about how far the pursuit of more can push people end up being rather impactful and even thought-provoking, despite all the craziness.
Make no mistake:Deliver At All Costsis not a groundbreaking story experience or the nextLast of Usin terms of its narrative. But it is more than what players may expect at first.
Overall,Deliver At All Costsis what it says on the box, but also something deeper. Gamers wanting nothing more than an escape where they can raze a city to the ground in an old pickup truck can get just that. But the game also offers a tight, well-told mystery-thriller for a fun, pulpy story experience. On both fronts, it’s a joy to play.
