Author: Jacob Bullard

Teardown is a voxel based crime simulator made by Tuxedo Labs. Finding yourself tight on cash, you take a shady job that unravels into a lengthy career of larceny and an apprehension of arson. Steal valuables, destroy property, hack security systems, and do it all before the fuzz finds out! Show up to the scene of the soon to be crime, and start planning. Prepare a route, break open some walls, stack boxes, position vehicles, and then let the crime commence! Timed trials, precarious positioning, and limited resources make Teardown feel more like a puzzle game than anything. Use your growing arsenal to make it out with as much as you can, and if all else fails… tear it all down!

Your crime spree all starts with an email from your mother who is a bit short on money and can’t heat her home. A small demolition project kept off the books should help for the short term, and hey, we all need to get by. After that others take notice of your… “unique” skill set and soon you’ll find your inbox flooded with potential offers. “Stealing”? I prefer object relocation. “Property damage”? I prefer unscheduled home remodeling. “Arson?” I prefer, uh, yeah no that’s just arson. As the game progresses you will find your arsenal lacking and your need for more pipe bombs ever increasing. Aside from your current objective you can find tons of loot all over the map you can sell to increase the amount; and efficiency of; your dastardly destructive demolition devices. From shotguns, bazookas, rocket thrusters, leaf blowers, you’ve got it all. The physics and voxel based terrain make the sandbox incredibly manipulatable and feels exactly like what it’s called, a sandbox! You will find yourself spending hours messing with your tools to set up the terrain exactly how you want. So far everything has been rather straightforward, but the main reason I waited on making this review is because the game wasn’t quite finished. 

Recently the second half of the game was released and Teardown feels much more well rounded, and now feels like a full game, easily worth the twenty bucks. Although it is still in early access and more content is planned to release, I find the amount of content available is totally worth the purchase. New maps set in a tropical island limit your weapons and set you back to basics. Find and scavenge weapons and tools on the island, and work with your extremely limited resources to perform your calamitous crimes. A decent challenge to most players, but set further into the game you should already have a decent grasp of what you are capable of and how to approach the challenges laid before you.

A small side note I wanted to add is that as you progress in Teardown, your abandoned factory/home progresses as you do! Your base of operation starts off as a dilapidated brick box in complete disrepair. As you perform missions and complete bonus objects, you will level up and unlock new weapons, along with additions to your home. They are completely cosmetic but it feels like an understandable sense of accomplishment. No giant trophies or golden castles to show off your riches. Perhaps a new bed, or some exercise equipment? Maybe you can start working on that dream car! Some remodeling, a new van. It’s small details overall but it feels more believable and is a nice touch to show off your progress.

I would heavily recommend grabbing teardown at its current price. With plenty to keep you entertained, and so many tools to fully utilize your imagination, you will find yourself lost in this cube caked countryside. Even if you find the missions too challenging or not your cup of tea, you can hop in sandbox mode and enjoy the destruction without worry of police being called. If that’s not enough the modding scene is going insane, and you can find so many tools of tremendous terror that add hundreds of hours of content to your playthrough. I don’t want to spoil it but some of the new missions also have some… new friends on old maps that add a new layer of challenge if you’re into that. A final word on the subject, if you can do it in Teardown, you can’t do it in real life. That’s a felony. Unless you strap thrusters onto your elderly neighbor’s mobility scooter, because that is hilarious, and as we all know. It’s not a crime if it was funny.