The Overcooked! series is a special one. There are very few games around that are so easily accessible and yet so fiercely competitive at the same time. Designed to be the perfect party game, its simple controls and colourful look open the experience up to just about any audience. Pair this with some fantastic gameplay and frantic pacing, and you’ll find that – despite its name – this is a game cooked to perfection.
Launching back in 2016, the original Overcooked! was a success through simplicity. A quick tutorial at the start covers the basics of cooking – press one button to chop ingredients and another to pick up or place something. That’s it. You’re essentially just chopping things up, then dropping them in a pot or pan before serving it all up to your customers. The basics of it are so simple that just about anyone can pick it up – from your youngest sibling right through to that friend who’s never touched a game in their life. Pick your fellow chefs wisely though – once things start to fire up in the kitchen, you’ll find that most fall back on their inner Gordon Ramsey real quick.
Despite its cooperative team design and simple controls, Overcooked! knows how to dial the pressure right up. Whether it’s the looming time limits, ridiculous cooking environments or just the determination to hit those target scores, there’s always something there just waiting to light a fire under your team. While you can skate through the first few levels without too much thought, it isn’t long until you end up with more tasks than chefs to cover them – and this is generally where a nice evening with friends or family descends into total chaos.
Most of the madness comes from the flat out insane kitchens the game has you travelling through. Even the most regular looking restaurants will inexplicably be lined with conveyerbelts across the floors and tabletops, while some have been designed to split your team up as much as possible. The levels grow more and more wild as you go, eventually having you cook a hearty soup surrounded by magma or throwing pizzas together using teleporting doorways. You’ll never spend longer than a few minutes in each level, so it’s great that there’s such a huge variety of unique kitchens to keep your team on their toes. Best laid plans and good intentions almost always fall apart in the heat of the moment, and if you’re not all shouting orders and passing off filthy looks at each other at the end of a tough level – well then you’re just not playing it right.
Each entry also has some light and airy storyline running through the adventure – if only to progress you from one kitchen to the next. The first has you travelling across the map developing your skills and teamwork in order to take down… an enormous talking spaghetti bolognese. You’re given this task by the king, who himself is an onion, and his faithful dog Kevin. The minimal plot is really just there to slip a few jokes in – with Kevin often chiming in with a few shots and critiques as he feels necessary. Overcooked! 2 doubles down on the gags of the first, posing the enemy as zombified bakery items and calling them the ‘Unbread’. Outside of this, the sequel also added some great improvements such as online multiplayer and the ability to throw ingredients across the kitchen. The online addition is a huge plus when you’re looking to play with friends who can’t get together in person, and if you think lobbing food across to teammates would lead to anything other than more chaos – you’re sadly mistaken.
Rounding out both games are some fairly meaty chunks of DLC, each bringing new characters, levels and orders to deal with. Some notable extras put you in charge of poolside smoothies, while others will have you roasting turkeys with a flamethrower. It’s amazing that the team behind the series is able to keep creating new ways to play here, with all the extra content being great for those looking to stretch the fun just a bit further. This is perfect once your team gets on a roll, as it really is one of those games that demand ‘just one more go’. Despite the tension, heated words and constant disasters you and your team will run in to, this is still one of the greatest coop experiences a group of friends can have in front of a screen. Just don’t blame the game if you never speak to each other again.
The Overcooked! Series – available now on PS4, XBOne, PC and Nintendo Switch.