Welcome back to the PC Gamer Q&A. Every week, we ask our panel of PC Gamer writers a question about PC gaming, then invite you to participate in the comments. This week: if you could play a sequel to any game, what would it be?

Andy Chalk: Night of the Rabbit

It's probably my favourite Daedalic adventure, and I really thought that the sweeping forest fairy tale, tinged with just enough darkness to keep things interesting, had set the stage for something bigger. (It even included an obvious sequel hook in the grand finale wrap-up.) Sure, it wasn't perfect—the ending segment in particular was very weak—but it is a perfect world for more stories. It's a damn shame that it didn't get at least one more shot at a breakthrough. I mean, Deponia was a trilogy! So how did Night of the Rabbit end up relegated to a one-and-done? Get it together, Daedalic.

Austin Wood: Vanquish

I've wanted to play more Vanquish for years, but I didn't need to until I played the recent PC port. It looks and feels so good on PC that it would be a shame to never see more. The slow-motion shooting and sliding are effortless with a mouse, and the port's increased frame rate really got them to sing. My mouth waters at the thought of what Platinum could do with a sequel built with PC in mind. 

Chris Livingston: F.E.A.R

While I was looking at footage of F.E.A.R. for my collection of the best, most kick-ass kicks in PC games, I was thinking, huh: I really want to play a new sequel to F.E.A.R. The developer, Monolith, is still around cranking out Lord of the Rings games, but I'd love to see them renew the FPS that felt pretty ahead of its time in 2005 with it's full body modeling and bullet time effects. Plus, it was genuinely scary (also, as I said, it had awesome kicking).

Campaign-based singleplayer FPS games aren't as common as they used to be—and I rarely even play the ones that do come out—but I'd be into a new F.E.A.R. with updated visuals and effects and sound. They're welcome to bring Alma back, too—the creepy little girl horror trope is pretty well played out, but I could handle a bit more if it meant I could do some slow-motion flying kicks through clouds of shrapnel and smoke. I wouldn't even grouse about having to spell the title in all caps with periods in between the letters. And I hate doing that. Just ask Stalker.

Jarred Walton: Neuromancer

This is so old that I fear I may be one of the few that even remembers the game Neuromancer, which I played on C64 back in the late 80s—you can still run the PC version, thanks to the Internet Archive, though you really should listen to the Devo original for the intro music. Anyway, I loved the game, and the book, and the world needs more cyberpunk games. The Deus Ex series is good, and I enjoyed Shadowrun, but I'd like something that focuses a bit more on the cyberspace/matrix/hacking side of things. We also need games that remember the 'punk' aspect of the genre. Do I even need to mention how much I'm looking forward to CDPR's Cyberpunk 2077?

Tim Clark: Final Fantasy Tactics 2

My short but sweet answer is Final Fantasy Tactics 2. The original turn-based RPG battler is in my top five games of all time, but criminally has yet to be ported to PC, despite Wes Fenlon's attempts to bully Square Enix into rectifying that situation. Ugh, imagine how amazing it would be to play a brand new Tactics on your laptop during a long flight. I would burn every other Final Fantasy in a pit for one more Tactics installment. Don't @ me, Samuel. 

Evan Lahti: Overcooked

Don't fret, Tim. In the meantime you can 'console' yourself with this 63-track collaborative tribute to FFT's soundtrack.I'm a simple man with semi-realistic needs: I want a second helping of Overcooked. I don't think we've had more fun with a local multiplayer game here in the PCG US office, although Nidhogg 2 was great too. Food is a novel theme for a co-op game, and within that, Overcooked mixes total calamity, creative problem solving, and multiple degrees of success. Of the ways Overcooked could be expanded upon—online multiplayer is the obvious one, but level editing and sharing would extend its life tremendously. Honestly I'd accept any imitation of this style of "cooperative assembly line" game. Hopefully we'll see another one before too long; I realize there aren't a ton of us who have three or four PC-compatible controllers lying around and a couch facing our PC. One of Valve's business people seems to agree that it's "exceptionally hard" to make money off this genre.

Jody Macgregor: Planescape: Torment

I know we already had a spiritual sequel in Torment: Tides of Numenera, but the story of a potential follow-up by Beamdog (which they quickly kiboshed) got my hopes up for a direct sequel. Though the endings leave room for more things to happen to The Nameless One I'd be happy with new characters in the same setting—that setting being Sigil, the city built on the inner surface of a giant floating donut-shaped object. Exploring Sigil from an isometric perspective was great, but I want a modern sequel that, like Dragon Age Origins, lets you switch to a viewpoint where you can point the camera up. I want to gawp at the rooftops and streets hanging over my head.

Samuel Roberts: Fallout: New Vegas

Just today I was looking at the total number of downloads for Fallout: New Vegas mods on Nexus: 201 million. Holy shit, people like that game. While I enjoyed Fallout 4, you can never really have too much Fallout, and I'd love to see Obsidian take another stab at bringing this universe to life. It's more than likely Bethesda Game Studios is working on the next Elder Scrolls right now anyway—who wouldn't love another Fallout with a slightly different take in the meantime? Maybe with more interesting clashes of factions, driven by player choice?

If not that, then I would love to see a sequel to Rockstar's Bully, which seemed like it was on the cards a long time ago. It remains a personal favourite of mine. 

But what about you, kind reader? Let us know below.

You can grab one of last year's smash hit local co-op games today at a discount price. Chop vegetables, put the burgers on the buns, and deliver them without falling in the lava in Overcooked, which you can find for half off today on Bundle Stars. 

Catastrophe is around every corner in Overcooked, and it's wonderfully chaotic as up to four of you try and cook up meals in increasingly awful locations for a kitchen. Tom's review from last year says it's "one of the most fun and challenging local co-op games ever made." 

You can get the base game for 50 percent off today, and you can get The Lost Morsel DLC also for half off, which adds new levels and chefs to unlock. Overcooked is up at full price everywhere else today, so grab it while it's hot (but before it burns). 

Some online stores give us a small cut if you buy something through one of our links. Read our affiliate policy for more info. 

Team17 has been up to a lot more than just Worms for the past few years, putting out games across a whole range of genres. You can get large chunks of money off on a bunch of games in Bundle Stars' Team17 Sale this weekend.

Some of the highlights include:

• Yooka-Laylee - 25 percent off
• Overcooked - 50 percent off
• The Escapists - 66 percent off

Co-op cooking game Overcooked is a particular highlight of the sale. Tom's review from last year goes into how wonderfully chaotic the game gets when you're playing with friends. The Escapists is a remarkably deep prison break game, and Yooka-Laylee is a throwback to 90s collect-athons. Plenty of other games are at a discount price too, but you only have 72 hours to take advantage.

Some online stores give us a small cut if you buy something through one of our links. Read our affiliate policy for more info. 

While local multiplayer was once mostly limited to consoles or LAN parties, PC gamers looking for a dose of that old-school same-screen nostalgia now have more options than ever, and by streaming games to the TV you can play on the couch even while your PC is in another room.

Some local multiplayer PC games focus on fierce competition, parroting the arena brawling of games like Super Smash Bros. Others can be every bit as frantic, but pit you and your friends against the game instead of each other.

However it is you like to play, these are the best local multiplayer games on PC.

Cooperative games

Overcooked

If Iron Chef has taught me anything, it's that there is no truer arena than the kitchen. This is a sentiment Overcooked takes to heart, simulating the chaos and commotion of a multi-station restaurant kitchen. Two to four players zip frantically around increasingly complex kitchen arenas to prep and deliver orders as they come in. Some are simple: for tomato soup, for example, drop three chopped tomatoes in a pot, let it cook for a moment, plate the dish and send it on its way. But most are much more complex, requiring a delicate dance of chopping ingredients, cooking others, and assembling dishes according to the various incoming orders.

Success requires a combination of coordination, communication, delegation of duties, and fine-motor skills in order to meet the demands of the dinner rush. It's chaotic fun—just try not to burn the kitchen down.

Rocket League

This brilliant game of car soccer has captured us completely. At first glance this may appear to be a purely slapstick game about rocket-powered cars bumping giant floaty balls into goals, apparently at random, but go deeper and you’ll find a fiercely competitive game of carball that almost drove editor Samuel Roberts mad.

Rocket League is an excellent couch game because it suits quick pick-up-and play sessions and is easily played when fully reclined—we tested. Once you start to get a feel for the controls a world of trickshots and bold upside-down car-kicks reveals itself, and a moreish stream of cosmetic unlocks gives the game even more colourful personality. It’s worth experimenting with 1v1 and 2v2 if the default six-player matches seem too chaotic.

Divinity: Original Sin 2

Divinity: Original Sin 2 was our 2017 Game of the Year and is one of the finest RPGs of all time. It's also excellent for local co-op play with adaptive splitscreen and full controller support. You and your buddy can create characters together, but if they're a little late to the party they can just jump in and begin controlling one of the existing NPC companions.

Death Squared

Death Squared is the type of puzzle game that can single-handedly tear friendships apart. For either two or four players, you control colorful cube robots trying to make it to specific spots on each map, but as each player moves the level shifts around them—usually with highly lethal results for your teammates. It’s a phenomenally clever and challenging puzzle game, but one of the most successful parts of it is just how much coordination it takes. It’s difficult for one player to “quarterback” the solutions to every level, which makes it more fun for everyone.

Another great two-player puzzle game to look at is Kalimba. It’s much faster-paced than Death Squared, but it similarly rewards cooperation. 

Castle Crashers

There’s a special joy in getting together with three friends and beating the crap out of everything. Castle Crashers revels in that joy—it practically bathes in it. Each player controls their own knight in a seriously warped fantasy kingdom, running to the right and slaughtering countless enemies through forests, towns, castles, dungeons, and more. Each kill gets you experience for stronger sword swings or better magical attacks. There are tons of weapons, animal companions, and secret heroes to find and fight over, too. Sure, you can play it solo (or online), but we love playing with friends right on the couch—coordinating the “cat-fish” fight is way more insane when your companions are right beside you.

Local co-op is really the bread and butter of developer The Behemoth, and they have more games worth checking out. Battleblock Theater is a great two-player platformer with full Steam Workshop support for custom levels, and the more recent Pit People is a more casual, controller-driven take on a turn-based strategy game.

Streets of Rogue

A roguelike mashed up with an immersive sim, Streets of Rogue is both procedurally generated and heavily systems-driven. You and up to three friends can take on random missions that can be solved any way you like, similar to other games like Dishonored or Deux Ex but top-down and pixelated. The game provides a shocking amount of variety and freedom for how simple it looks, making it an easy one to pass up. While it’s not strictly a co-op game, I think it’s fair to say nearly any systems-driven game can become a lot more fun (read: absolutely chaotic) when a group of people are tackling it at the same time. 

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes

The brilliantly named Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes simulates that action movie scene where the plucky hero has to disarm a bomb by describing what it looks like to a bomb defusal expert over the phone. In the game, only one player can see or interact with the ticking time bomb and its myriad switches, wires, and buttons, while the rest of the players have access to a bomb defusal manual. The game was built for (and plays best in) VR, but even without an expensive headset it aptly simulates the tense conversation of trying to solve a puzzle where you can't see the pieces. Just remember: keep talking and nobody explodes.

Enter the Gungeon

Another game that’s not strictly co-op, but Enter the Gungeon is a lot more fun with a friend sitting next to you. It’s a bullet-hell roguelike where you shoot bullets at bullets who are shooting other bullets at you. Do keep in mind, Enter the Gungeon is hard, and you will likely die a lot, ally at your side or not. But its co-op is integrated extremely well, and the punishing difficulty doesn’t feel as harsh with a friend to help. It’s a great combination of genres in a lovely pixel art wrapper, and one of the few games on this list that likely won’t make you extremely angry at your ally.

Broforce

This 2D shooter is a pastiche of both ‘80s movies and side-scrolling arcade games—it’s a very fun combination. You and up to three friends play as ‘parody’ versions of characters like Rambo (here called ‘Rambro’), the Terminator (‘Brominator’) and even more contemporary choices like Will Smith from Men In Black, or Neo from The Matrix. The fun comes in how these characters’ weapons all differ, as well as Broforce’s physics-driven level design, where every single block of the environment can pretty much be destroyed. While there’s not a lot to it, the variation in enemy types and environments mean this is a perfect couch game for a 30-minute burst of fun.

Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime

Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime is a bit like if FTL was multiplayer and everything happened in real time. You and up to three friends each control an avatar on a lovely colorful spaceship careening through space. There are various stations to man, such as weapons systems, engine, shield, and map, and players have to run their little avatar from one to another as threats present themselves. It’s a hard game because you almost always need to be in more places than you can manage, constantly running from station to station while bumping into your shipmates. But a well-oiled crew can make piloting the clumsy ship incredibly satisfying, especially during Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime’s huge boss fights.

Hive Jump

Hive Jump is a procedurally generated ode to Super Metroid for up to four players. The levels are randomized each time you play, but with hand-designed rooms and challenges scattered throughout. You get new guns and upgrade your troops as your team descends further into the alien hive, and Hive Jump features a pretty cool respawn system that’s sort of like permadeath-lite. You can respawn on death, but only if you manage to keep a transponder on your back safe from enemies, which incentivizes players sticking together and helping each other out.

If you want another retro roguelike co-op option, 20XX takes the jump-n-shooting of Mega Man and puts it into procedurally generated maps for up to two players. 

On the next page: competitive games and arena brawlers like Nidhogg, Towerfall Ascension, and Videoball.

Competitive games

Jackbox Party Packs

There are now four Jackbox Party Packs, each jammed with great party games (and their sequels) like You Don't Know Jack, Fibbage, Drawful, Quiplash, and others (plus a few not-great ones like Word Spud and Lie Swatter). You don't need to worry if you've got a crowd and are short a few controllers: you can connect to the game server on a browser with your smartphones. If you're looking for fun trivia challenges, quiz shows, drawing games, bluffing games, and other assorted party games, pretty much any pack you pick will give you something great. While the series has been tilting more toward streaming games for an audience, they're still great to play at home.

Oh My Godheads

There are five different modes you can play in Oh My Godheads, each with their own unique twists. ‘Capture the Head’ is like capture the flag—if the flag was a head that occasionally fights back while you're carrying it. King of the Head challenges you to hold onto a struggling, angry Godhead longer than anyone else. Meanwhile, you battle other players using swords and exploding pies, plus collectible power-ups that allow you to freeze players or squash them with a giant foot. It's a fast-paced and fun twist on capture the flag, because the flag doesn't want to be captured.

Crawl

A competitive dungeon crawler with a top notch retro styling. Crawl is a four player asymmetrical hack-n-slash where one player is a hero fighting through a dungeon, while the others inhabit the monsters and traps scattered throughout. Whoever gets the last hit on the hero takes their place, and the game ends when either the hero manages to defeat the dungeon’s boss (also player controlled) or the party loses to the boss for a third time. You get new items and improve your hero while also leveling up and improving the monsters you can control, so you’re growing stronger no matter which side of the struggle you are on.

Another great (and free!) little co-op game from developer Powerhoof is Regular Human Basketball, which is exactly what the name implies. 

Worms W.M.D.

The Worms series has always been a gem of competitive local multiplayer, but I was less than thrilled with many of the recent 2.5D entries. Worms W.M.D. gets back to good ol’ fashioned 2D animation, and it’s absolutely lovely. It’s one of the best Worms games in a very long time, with all the physics-based skillshots and tricky ninja ropes you may remember alongside some cool new tricks. The series has also struck a great balance between randomization and skill, making it great to either just have some fun with or settle hard-bitten scores. 

Brawlhalla

Wish you could play Super Smash Bros. on PC? Well so do I, but I’ve learned to live with the crushing disappointment that that's literally never going to happen. Luckily, Brawlhalla is here to ease the pain a bit. It’s a fighting game that shares Smash Bros.’s percentage-damage system and screen-launching deaths, but it’s also based around picking up different weapons that each have a unique moveset. It doesn’t have the recognizable characters of Smash Bros., but it’s still got some nice character design that does a good job of letting Brawlhalla stand on its own two feet. Brawlhalla is also free-to-play, making it easy to hop into with some friends if you want to give it a shot.

Another good Super Smash Bros. stand-in is Rivals of Aether, which has been in Early Access for less time, but has more of a focus on unique characters with special abilities than weapons. 

TowerFall Ascension

A lot of single-screen deathmatch games are content to offer a single way to play, offering a lean, lightweight experience by doing one thing very well. TowerFall Ascension is a much more comprehensive offering than most. In its basic form, up to four players jump around 2D levels pinging lethal arrows at one another. A finite quantity of ammo makes it important to snatch arrows from the bodies of fallen foes—or grab them out of the air, if you're quick enough—and powerups, environmental hazards and shifting maps keep this process interesting. But there's much more to the game than that. In two-player co-op you take on a series of survival challenges against increasingly varied and interesting enemies. A page full of special rules and mutators allows you to create new game modes on the fly, from giving everybody bouncing arrows to creating a single invisible super-player who the others have to hunt.

Often mentioned in the same conversation as TowerFall is Samurai Gunn, which keeps the one-hit-kills but trades bows-and-arrows for, you guessed it, samurai swords and guns. Matches are a bit quicker and more frantic, but every bit as fun.  

Duck Game

In the future—1984, in this case—pixelated ducks compete in a violent, ever-changing bloodsport. Join your friends in team deathmatch and blast each other with shotguns, lasers, grenades, and tons of other weapons. The matches are quick, with a single shot taking you out, and the map changes after each round which never lets you get comfortable or bored. Plus, there are mini-games that serve as intermission from the carnage, and a button dedicated solely to quacking. It's a fun, silly, and frenetic game that's hard to stop playing.

Gang Beasts

It's still—still—in Early Access, but Gang Beasts is already a hoot of a party game, featuring a series of deadly arenas in which to awkwardly punch, kick, drag, pick up, and throw your friends around. Struggle to control unwieldy balloon characters as you and your friends fight to the death in levels containing meat grinders, moving trucks, Ferris wheels, and speeding subway trains. The difficulty of steering your character is part of the appeal, and making things harder is the fact that you'll be laughing uncontrollably as you fight to climb back up the side of the ledge you've been thrown off, or struggle to free yourself from the clingy grip of another player.

Nidhogg

Nidhogg is one of the best one-on-one competitive games on PC. As a fighter, it’s a Bushido Blade-like struggle for one killing blow as two pixel fencers advance, parry, lunge, dive kick, and disarm each other with staccato bursts of button presses. It’s beautiful (you really have to see the sprites in motion), weird, and takes great skill to master. It’s also a lot of fun to watch, especially thanks to the tug-of-war competition format. Rather than a best-of-three series of short bouts, the players are competing to advance across a stage. Kill your opponent, and you get the right-of-way to dash toward your side of the level. When they respawn, they have to return the favor to gain the right-of-way and take back territory. On top of the drama of each duel—which usually ends suddenly—each match is an easy-to-read struggle for progress, with lots of opportunities for comebacks and upsets. When the winning player makes it past the final room, a crowd cheers, and the titular dragon gobbles him up. Congratulations!

A sequel, featuring multiple weapons and a grotesque claymation art style, is expected later this year. 

Ultimate Chicken Horse

Isn’t the name clear enough? It’s a platformer combination of Horse and Chicken. You take turns placing platforms, obstacles, and traps around a Super Meat Boy style level, trying to make it too hard for your opponents to complete but not so hard that you can’t complete it either. As the map fills up with ways to die, you can eventually remove blocks or rearrange them, so it sort of balances itself through the course of a game. It’s not the easiest game to just jump into with friends as platforming skill will seriously come into play here, but it’s easy enough to pick up for people unfamiliar with the genre. And frankly, it’s an awesomely unique concept that you won’t really find anywhere else.

Invisigun Heroes

A newer take on the one-hit-kill same-screen deathmatch that was pioneered by the likes of TowerFall Ascension and Samurai Gunn, Invisigun Heroes mixes things up by making everyone invisible, appearing only when they shoot. Matches are tense, as it's as much about tracking your enemies' locations as it is keeping a bead on your own. Certain terrain types help with that, showing footprints or splashes of water when you walk, and bumping into a crate lights it up in the color of whoever made contact. There's also a variety of class types, each with it's own unique abilities—an exploding recon sensor and a complex doppelganger power are two highlights alongside more standard fare like a terrain jump, bullet-reflecting sword, and boring-but-effective dash attack. Various game modes also help keep things interesting, ranging from territory-control to a somewhat weird coin-collecting scheme—but nothing beats the standard deathmatch.

Sportsfriends

A compilation of quirky competition. Sportsfriends envisions four ridiculous new sports—although one, Johann Sebastian Joust, is only compatible with Mac and Linux. That's a shame, but not disastrous, as the remaining package is still great. The best of the bunch is Super Pole Riders, created by QWOP's own Bennett Foddy. It's entertainingly chaotic, as two teams of pole vaulters attempt to move an overhead ball towards their goal. Primary tactics include performing a proper pole vault, or using the pole to guide the ball along its rope. You can also play defence, using the pole as a barricade to smack an opponent away, or jumping on their head to force a respawn.

Also included is Hokra, a four player game about filling in blocks of colour; and BaraBariBall, a Smash Bros.-like arena game but with goals to score and almost infinite jumping. As a whole collection, Sportsfriends is intense, entertaining, and varied. 

For a bit of a lewder take on Sportsfriends' minigame collection, the more recent Genital Jousting offers similar goofy gameplay but paired with silly, floppy, cartoon penises.

Videoball

Sport distilled down into its essence: this is the pure videogame version of soccer, with a ludicrous range of options. Colors, scoring rules, arenas—there's a lot here to tweak to your own liking. The joy of Videoball comes in tuning into the timing of shooting and blocking. You are an Asteroids-like triangle, and the tap of a button (the game uses only one) fires a stream of small triangles out of your ship. These are good for dribbling the ball forward. Hold the button, and you power up the shot for a slam dunk—but if an opponent hits the ball with their own slam, it reverses direction while retaining all its momentum. And if you hold the button too long, your powered up shot converts into a defensive block. The pieces are incredibly basic, but there's insane headroom room for endless competition, as in any great sport.

Some of the most fun I've had playing a game this year came during a brief but overwhelming love affair with Overcooked. This frantic local co-op cooking game really captured the hearts of PC Gamer's US office—the minute the clock struck 5 pm we were crowding into a meeting room to chop tomatoes and wash dishes and plate our meals as the timer ticked down. Taking place in increasingly ludicrous restaurant scenarios, including a moving iceberg, a pirate ship and even the middle of a road, Overcooked requires careful concentration and coordination to fulfill specific orders in quick succession, but naturally everyone in the kitchen starts shouting at each other within just a few minutes. It might be even more fun to watch the madness unfold than to have a hand in it.

The most gratifying thing about Overcooked is rising to the challenge of a new level. The game seems easy, at first, with an introductory few levels that just introduce you to the basics of working together to prepare ingredients, cook them, and turn them in quickly. But as soon as obstacles start to show up, a poorly prepared team falls apart.

There's no single strategy that works in every kitchen, except perhaps having a team captain to Gordon Ramsay your chefs into ashamed organized obedience. Sometimes it's best for each player to focus on a specific task: you're on dishes, you're on chopping, you're on steaks. Don't. Burn. The. Steaks. You. Fuck. Got that process down? Good—now you have to toss aside that routine for something completely different.

Then the next level constricts your movement, requiring everyone to cycle through each task in one smooth, continuing motion. Suddenly it's a game about timing, not mastery of a particular activity. And things just escalate from there, requiring some creative planning and pinpoint execution to clear. Another level sets you skidding across a broken ice flow, where it's treacherously easy to drop a completed dish into the ocean. One late-game stage takes you to space (cool) but requires pinpoint timing to move ingredients and completed dishes back and forth between a moving airlock compartment (so hard). 

The first crack at the harder kitchens almost always collapses in indecision, yelling, and despair, but those are the natural stages of Overcooked grief. You take a deep breath. You admit that that was a disaster. And you regroup. Responding to that failure with a battle plan and executing on it for that sweet sweet three star reward? That's a bisque for the soul.

Like other great co-op games, Overcooked is mostly a tool used to form memorable experiences with your friends. It does a lot with simple controls and variation on a single concept, but it helps that everything is so cartoony and adorable. The characters are easy to differentiate from the overhead perspective thanks to a few fun standouts like a fox and a raccoon who uses a wheelchair (Evan's go-to). Even the simple story is great, involving time travel to save the world from a giant meatball called the Ever Peckish.

Overcooked is so much more intricately designed than you'd expect for a small co-op game about cooking. I wouldn't recommend it by your lonesome, but with a trio of friends, it's a phenomenal choice for an hour of co-op madness. You'll come out stronger for the effort, new bonds forged in a kitchen split asunder by an earthquake. Or you'll hate each other, but such is the risk of a friendship tested by overcooked soup.

Hot on the heels of its Lost Morsel DLC, Kitchen catastrophe simulator Overcooked will launch a free Christmas-themed expansion next week. 

Dubbed a "festive feast of holiday-themed extra content" Overcooked's Festive Seasoning DLC adds a range of goodies to the cooperative couch cook 'em up. There's a new winter-kissed world map, for example, which adds a snowmobile for easier/life threatening navigation. There's also two new unlockable chefs—the snowman and the reindeer—who can be adorned with Santa hats; and there's two new recipes for serving—the turkey dinner and the stew. 

A new Winter Lodge theme boasts eight new co-op levels; and, to top all of this off, the new expansion adds a new utensil: the flamethrower. As if fumbling around Overcooked's hazard-ridden kitchens wasn't dangerous enough. 

Here's the latest expansion in practice by way of moving pictures:

Overcooked's Festive Seasoning DLC will be available as a free download on December 6. Until then, here's Tom's review of the base game—which he described as "one of the most fun and challenging local co-op games ever made." Should it tickle your fancy, it's available to buy via the Humble Store for £12.99/$16.99. 

Some online stores give us a small cut if you buy something through one of our links. Read our affiliate policy for more info. 

Overcooked, the frantic co-op cooking game Tom described as "chaotic bliss", has launched its first portion of DLC.

Named The Lost Morsel, culinary serving sim's latest outing visits an "exotic" jungle setting and offers players six new chefs by way of a Dinosaur, Robot, French Bulldog, Panda, Bear and Pig; as well as six new campaign levels to spill soup and burn meals all over. Navigating the world map is also made possible this time by helicopter because a group of folk who can barely bring water to the boil without setting the room on fire can absolutely be trusted to pilot rotorcraft.

Here's a trailer:

The Lost Morsel DLC is out now and costs 3.99/$4.99, while the base game has a new Gourmet Edition which bundles it with the expansion for 15.99/$19.99.

Overcooked is available to buy via the Humble Store for 12.99/$16.99.

Some online stores give us a small cut if you buy something through one of our links. Read our affiliate policy for more info.

Perhaps the biggest challenge of Ghost Town Games and Team 17 s Overcooked is reaching the end of any given level without having set the kitchen on fire. I speak from experience, having watched pretty much every in-game kitchenscape I ve graced go up in flames a problem which others appear to have struggled with too. The best thing about it is this is part of the fun.

If you think you might fare better, you can now test your own culinary clout as Overcooked has launched on Steam, and celebrates with the following release trailer.

Across 28 standard campaign levels, as well as an end boss, players can whip up a storm either on their lonesome or via local co-op the latter of which Tom suggests best portrays what the chaotic kitchen em up has to offer. Best served with friends are Overcooked s nine local versus levels. Depending on how much you value your friendship, you can even split gamepad controls and share the same controller with a pal.

There s no online co-op for now, which is a shame, however there is the choice of 14 different chefs to play as, as well as a range of kitchen settings such as aboard spaceships and moving vehicles to flounder within. And inevitably set on fire.

Overcooked is out now via Steam for 12.99/$16.99/ 15.99.

There s fish burning in a fryer and I m too busy washing plates to stop it. Meanwhile, nobody is cutting potatoes and the paraplegic racoon in a wheelchair just slipped and fell into an icy river while holding a full plate of french fries ready to serve. The fryer goes up in flames and the tabby cat rushes for the extinguisher. We still need to cut potatoes.

This is a normal level of catastrophe in Overcooked, a wonderfully chaotic local co-op cooking game that gives real power to the words too many cooks spoil the broth. At its best, a team of four players look like a beautiful mix of a ballet and an assembly line. At its worst, they look like one of Gordon s Ramsay s nightmares. And either way it s an absolute blast to play.

Overcooked is a race against time as you and your team try to make and deliver as many dishes as possible in four minutes. Burgers, pizza, and other dishes all come together in a similar way: chop ingredients, cook ingredients, put cooked ingredients on a plate, and serve before time runs out. Simple enough, but very rarely that straightforward in practice.

Overcooked s controls are great because they are easy enough to pick up quickly, but also allow for lots of little tricks that aren t taught in the tutorial. You can bring each ingredient to a plate, or you can pick that plate up and use it to gather the ingredients directly, saving time. Ingredients can be placed on a level s limited counter space, or you can just throw them on the ground to be picked up later. Learning these things through playing was exciting because I could see myself actually getting better, not just being given new abilities or told how to do some new technique.

Occupational hazards

Where Overcooked really shines, and where the vast majority of its challenge comes from, is its level design. They start simple an outdoor kitchen with random people walking through your path, a pirate ship that tilts and moves your tables back and forth but quickly escalate until your kitchen is split across three moving trucks or on shifting islands in a lake of lava, testing your team s communication more than anything else. There are two ice river levels, mentioned above, and they re some of the hardest in the game, but they made me keep coming back for more, trying to get a three star rating.

Suddenly we were driving back across Overcooked s charming level-select map, tracking down and tryharding any levels we only had two stars on. It s easy to complete a level, as the one star requirement is generally low except for the final set of levels which ramps up dramatically. There s no way to fail entirely, which I actually disliked as it removed some of the pressure when time was about to run out on an order. But to get three stars for most levels requires a gameplan and a coordinated team. We would often pause a level right at the start just to plan our strategy and assign roles to each person. As I played with the same group of people more, we all fell into regular roles.

But the levels in Overcooked are specifically designed to throw this sort of planning into chaos, and inevitably things would fall apart. The game didn t want us to have a plan, it wanted us to think on our feet. What happens when the pirate ship tilts, the tables slide, and suddenly Evan and his raccoon don t have access to the burners anymore? It s being able to quickly communicate and swap roles that let us conquer some of the game s harder stages, and when our communication broke down it was utter chaos.

I always knew things had gone horribly wrong when everyone stopped talking. The silence was often deafening as orders went unfilled and people haphazardly bumped into each other. These trainwrecks are part of the experience, but there are some ways Overcooked could better support players during the chaos. For one, every character wears a white chef s hat, making it hard to find myself at a glance, and I wish hats matched each player s shirt color. Another issue is that thresholds can be a little ambiguous I sometimes fell through the cracks between platforms on the ice and lava levels.

Off-line cook

In addition to the cat and the racoon, there s still an elephant in the kitchen we need to talk about: Overcooked doesn t have online play. Plenty of fantastic games are local only TowerFall Ascension and Gang Beasts are prime examples of that but it s still disappointing. The experience of reorganizing on the fly (read: frantically yelling at each other) probably wouldn t be the same over VoIP, but I wish I at least had the option.

Overcooked just isn t as much fun alone. Playing solo, you control two chefs which you can swap between, and chopping ingredients takes a lot longer than while playing multiplayer. This let me start chopping an onion with one chef, swap to the other to start another task, then swap back when the chopping was done. Instead of being about adapting to the level and sharing tasks, Overcooked becomes more like StarCraft a game of micro and finding the optimal order to complete those tasks.

It s a harder game, and a significantly more frustrating one with no one but yourself to blame for mistakes, but it s actually easier to progress while playing alone. The less people you have, the fewer points you need to reach two or three stars. So while you can get more done with four people, I often found it easier to reach three stars on a level with only one or two players because the bar was set so much lower. It felt like a cheap trick in order to progress when I was stuck, but everything seems simpler when there are fewer cooks in the kitchen.

With four players gathered around, Overcooked is hands down one of the best couch party games ever made. It s the perfect balance of chaos that can be conquered with skill. With two or three players, the game gets a little easier and much more strategic, with room to see what your doing and think about what needs to be done. With one, it s all about challenging yourself, and a lot of the whimsical fun of shouting at the screen is lost.