Teardown is a bloody nice heist recreation. Greater than only a showcase of developer Dennis Gustaffson’s spectacular destruction and rendering tech, Teardown masterfully frames that carnage in a sequence of sledgehammer puzzles—forcing you to make use of restricted instruments to carve an optimised path by means of every stage. December’s Half 2 Replace went even additional, utilizing two new maps to broaden the chance area of Teardown’s heists with killer robots and missions that faucet into its dense physics simulations in daring new methods.
Besides none of that’s the reason Teardown grew to become a go-to timewaster in 2021. I am taking part in Teardown as a result of, due to strong mod help, the sport reworked right into a religious successor to Garry’s Mod.
Garry’s Mod already has a extra direct sequel within the works, in fact. Dubbed S&box, Facepunch’s personal follow-up to the physics sandbox continues to be in early improvement. Nevertheless it’s been overwhelmed to the punch by Gustaffson’s voxel playground, which has seen an explosion in customized content material since opening its Steam Workshop back in March.
The comparisons are instant and stark. Each GMod and Teardown supply a powerful base of physics interactions to construct from—the previous utilizing the Supply Engine’s then-revolutionary suite to create a canvas of pulleys, switches, thrusters, balloons, and extra, reworking Half-Life 2 right into a nonsensical playground. Being primarily based on Supply additionally meant that you can pull in property from nearly any Supply Engine recreation, throwing Portal, Left 4 Lifeless, Counter-Strike and Half-Life characters right into a chaotic blender (typically actually).
Teardown does not have that cross-title help, certain. However what it does have is a fully attractive destruction mannequin, and the power to import something made out of voxels. What this implies is that it is comparatively easy to slam collectively a primary map, port it into Teardown, and start the joyous job of smashing it to items. Our personal former options lad, Andy Kelly, even famous as a lot, finding a perverse thrill in flattening a lovingly crafted noodle bar he’d in-built MagicaVoxel.
However Teardown mappers have gotten bloody good at creating new areas to smash up. They’ve made expansive Russian cities with absolutely detailed interiors and concrete skyscraper plazas that you may reconfigure by density, flooding, and element with every refresh. Suppose miniaturised cities that allow you to simulate mass destruction, re-creations of basic Counter-Strike maps, and a unusually terrifying pyramid home.
Whereas a few of these maps have heists constructed into them, most are simply open sandboxes, ready so that you can go to city with all of the instruments at your disposal. With the Steam Workshop, that toolbox is continually increasing past the fundamental sledgehammers and explosives. Why accept the bottom recreation’s pistol when you may shred aside skyscrapers with miniguns or soften by means of metal beams with an industrial incinerator that places the tiny default blowtorch to disgrace.
The Garry’s Mod comparability crystallised after realising the Teardown workshop has a straight-up GMod Physgun, letting you fling whole buildings round your head. There’s additionally the compulsory Portal Gun mod, which even enables you to see by means of your portals (albeit at a dramatically lowered framerate), and a complete set of Aperture-themed check champers to plug your method by means of.
It really works flawlessly, a imaginative and prescient of Portal that comes with the danger of by chance setting fireplace to your complete facility. It is only a disgrace it does not include a totally articulated GLaDOS to take a sledgehammer to. But.
After which there are the mods that straight-up reinvent what Teardown may even be. Earlier this yr I wrote about Basilisco, a large horrific snake-bird-robot that relentlessly pursues you thru foggy Russian cities whereas shrieking VHS howls. It is an unimaginable case for Teardown as a horror recreation.
Others search to reinforce what they see as the sport’s shortcomings. Teardown’s destruction mannequin is spectacular, but it surely does not precisely simulate structural integrity, and there are mods on the market that purpose to treatment this with hacked-together options for making constructions crumble and collapse beneath their very own weight. There are car frameworks for creating advanced tanks and helicopters.
Tuxedo Labs could be a small crew, but it surely’s embraced this scene wholeheartedly, offering instance maps and templates to get folks began. However greater than supporting modders by means of documentation and check ranges, each replace has additionally given modders solely new avenues to discover.
When Teardown’s massive Part 2 update arrived this month, it introduced a bunch of latest instruments, new maps, and new missions. Nevertheless it additionally launched pathfinding AI to Teardown by means of its killer robots, extra physics interactions with elastic cabling, dynamic climate results like tornadoes and snowstorms, and straight-up GMod-style thrusters to slap on autos.
Half 2 will in all probability be the final main replace to Teardown earlier than it leaves Early Entry. Nevertheless it’s offered an absolute bounty of instruments to set modders unfastened in spinning Teardown into new instructions. Aggressive AI templates imply it is solely a matter of time earlier than we see FPS-style horde protection or infiltration missions, and I can solely think about how far the sport’s physics programs may be reworked and reimagined.
If there’s one evident omission, it is that Teardown lacks any type of multiplayer. Sure, including multiplayer in a recreation that wasn’t constructed for it’s a behemoth job, but it surely’s all too simple to think about the sorts of impromptu gametypes that might spring up with such a delightfully breakable basis.
Nonetheless, Teardown has that very same thrill of leaping on every morning to see what new areas have popped up within the Steam workshop—and what new toys I can obtain to interrupt them aside with. Tuxedo Labs could be near performed with its physics sandbox, however I think I will be discovering new methods to tear down Teardown for a very long time.
