Games about destruction tend not to do the whole destruction thing very well. Put it this way: for years Red Faction has been the banner for destruction in games, despite its most recent instalment releasing nine years ago and its core being rather more about shooting than destruction. While you can destroy lots of things> in Red Faction, there’s not much of a game> in it.

Thankfully, we now have a new banner destruction game: Teardown, a game in which you can destroy pretty much everything. But Teardown’s serendipitous and difficult journey from tech tinkering to release taught lead developer Dennis Gustafsson something important about the whole idea of letting players demolish stuff. “There’s this expectation that more destruction in games is always a good thing. But actually, it’s really, really hard to design something around a fully destructible world.” (more…)

Outside of Teardown, most of us will never know the thrill of bombing industrial lots or driving a dump-truck into a billionaire’s mansion. But while I won’t be taking a sledgehammer to my office anytime soon, I can rest easy in the knowledge that I may soon be breaking it down on my desktop – with one programmer showing off a delightfully destructive montage of real-world wreckage inside Tuxedo Labs’ digital smashing yards.

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The shortest point between two points is a straight line. “As the crow flies,” they say. But in Teardown, I can’t fly. Instead, I am more like a worm. I eat my way forward, creating straight lines of travel by smashing, crashing, and bombing through warehouses and mansions. I will emerge from one building then dive through a self-made entrance into another – and I will do it all so I can rapidly steal or destroy the contents inside.

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There’s nothing quite like a fully destructible world to relieve a little stress, is there? Smash ‘n’ grab heist ’em up Teardown came out in early access today, inviting you to absolutely demolish some voxel environments. In it you’ll get to use explosives, vehicles and all kinds of tools to tear down walls and buildings to pull off the perfect (and messy) heist.

The trailer gives me GTA-meets-Minecraft vibes, but with a very healthy dose of ruthless destruction thrown in there. It looks: great.

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Now here’s some properly “breaking” news. Dennis Gustafsson’s delightfully destructive smash ‘n’ grab Teardown finally has a release date, and will be breaking its way onto Steam’s shelves by the end of the month. After all, what better way to roll into the end of 2020 than smashing it all into tiny, satisfying voxel chunks?

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For all the fancy shooting and whimsical adventures offered up during tonight’s Opening Night Live showcase, Teardown‘s appearance reminds us that sometimes it’s just fun to take a hammer to a brick wall. Launching later this year, the smash ‘n’ grab heist game from Tuxedo Labs has returned with a new trailer. It might only be a minute and a half long, but blimey, I could watch these buildings crumble for hours.

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Crime is all about decisions. Do you wanna leave a scene full of revealing clues? Fingerprints in the dust of a windowsill, footprints in the mud? Or do you wanna leave the fuzz with an absolute bombsite. Why’s that car wedged into the ceiling? Never mind who opened these doors, none of them are on their hinges anymore. Didn’t this office have a roof? Where did Building C go? The key to a good caper, I reckon, is leaving every crime scene without a single brick standing.

Teardown, a delightfully destructive sandbox heist game, has scheduled its opening day for some time next year. Myself? I’m ready to take a sledgehammer to the nearest wall right now.

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