FIRST LOOK: Ex-Lionhead devs’ King of Meat feels like Fall Guys meets Diablo

What do you get when Diablo meets Takashi’s Castle? It’s a question that most sane people have never asked, yet for the Guildford-based Glomade, there was only ever one answer: King of Meat.

Despite sounding like a questionable kebab shop, this bizarrely named co-op creation swaps dodgy doners for colourful, chaotic dungeons, thrusting four players into deadly arenas as they race to reach the finish line.

Set in the mystical world of Loregok, King of Meat casts players as contestants in the ultimate game show. In a world that’s part mediaeval fantasy, part corporate hellscape, Loregok’s fame-hungry citizens yearn to seek glory on the land’s only remaining TV channel. Their path to celebrity? Dodging flamethrowers, belching people off platforms and cracking waves of skeletons over the head. It’s all very charming, silly, and unashamedly British.

“There’s this Guildford shared thread that runs through a lot of these games, “ says Glomade founder, Jonny Hopper, reflecting on his studio’s previous experience “I worked on Little Big Planet, our art director worked on Fable, before it was Fable… our designer was design lead on Black and White… we all share that slightly wry sense of humour.”

Inspired by the team’s love of heavy metal, Wrestlemania and The Running Man, there’s more than a whiff of Fall Guys to Glomade’s obstacle-clambering extravaganza.

Teaming up with three other ridiculously-dressed heroes – a Shovel Knight-esque warrior, a squawking bird man and a comically Poundland samurai – my hours with King of Meat were spent slashing, leaping and rolling across flaming traps, crushing enemies with gigantic horse hoofs, and sliding down sticky hills as I avoided my teammates’ poorly thrown bombs. Cheers, guys.

While you and your band of bizarre armour-clad athletes clamber and battle across each deadly new course, it’s up to players to uncover hidden secrets, rack up kills, and earn as many style points as they can within the time limit.

Despite Mediatonic’s obvious unspoken influence on King of Meat, Hopper explains that it’s the zipped-head of Sackboy that casts the longest shadow: “One thing that we’ve discovered through Little Big Planet, is that once you give people a set of tactile, fun tools, they’ll surprise you indefinitely.”

Set to launch with over 100 different developer-made arenas, Hopper reveals that user-generated content is King of Meat’s secret doner sauce.

“The expectation is, as soon as King of Meat gets into people’s hand, [players] will be making levels that we’ve never imagined,” Hopper says, “…and they’re going to take stuff further than we’ve ever thought.”

“My hours with King Of Meat were spent slashing, leaping and rolling across flaming traps, crushing enemies with gigantic horse hoofs, and sliding down sticky hills as I avoided my teammates’ poorlythrown bombs”

With custom maps created via the intuitive-looking Komstruct mode, this top down map builder sees players placing obstacles, enemies and devious traps, Dungeon Keeper style. In a nice touch, players can leave “tips” for levels that they love, with the most acclaimed user-made arenas eventually graduating to official map playlists.

Between each match, players find themselves chilling “backstage” at Ironlaw Plaza, a medieval twist on Splatoon’s Inkopolis square. Part social space, part outdoor market, here players unlock wonderfully ridiculous outfits, upgrade their weapons and acquire additional attacks and showstopping ‘glory’ moves. In a bid to encourage their community of budding creators, screens in the plaza will proudly highlight the latest and greatest player-made levels.

“Ultimately, it is all about making creators feel good,” Hopper explains, “They are not just a resource to be mined, they’re people. You want to reward them, highlight them and celebrate them.”

If you’re like me, however, you’ll probably never even bother booting the creative mode. Luckily for Glomade then, they only need a small number of engaged creators for King of Meat to thrive: “If 10% of our player base make a level, and just 10% of those levels are any good, we’ve still essentially got more levels than anyone’s ever going to play,” Hopper explains.

Yet despite coming away impressed by its vast UGC potential, the maps I played all looked jarringly similar. This is, of course, a pre-release build – so let’s hope that once players have been given access to creation tools, that they can harness them to create more visually distinct arenas.

Still, there’s arguably a bigger horse hoof lurking ominously over King of Meat – the state of online games in 2024. In a year where we’ve seen multiple live service titles fail –  and for Naughty Dog and Creative Assembly‘s efforts, before they’ve even released – developing an online game is currently a huge risk. It was surprising then, to hear that King of Meat will shun the free to play model in favour of a ‘mid-priced’ fee.

“If 10% of our player base make a level, and just 10% of those levels are any good, we’ve still essentially got more levels than anyone’s ever going to play”

“I think what we’re trying to do is give [players] good value for time,” says Hopper, “We’re not engaging with free to play mechanics at all. At launch, we’ve got this promise of 100+ levels, offering a 30-to-40-hour guaranteed good time. So out of the box, you’re going to get a really cool, curated experience”

There is, of course, a story loosely tying all the co-op carnage together, with artwork and dialogue that takes a jab at a dystopian-esque, domineering capitalist corporation – which is pretty on the nose for a game published by Amazon.

“As you progress through the game, you meet all these different characters and corporations,” Hopper explains, “There’s a bunch of stories that we’re going to uncover and…we’ve got a multi-year narrative plan for where we’re going to take things.”

While the satirical opening cinematic and loading screens burst with personality, the dialogue spouted by the various NPCs in the plaza fails to hit the same grin-inducing highs. Thankfully though, much of the humour in King of Meat comes from its gameplay.

As you’d expect from ex-Media Molecule and Lionhead creators, King of Meat is unabashedly silly,  revelling in having you shove fellow players off cliffs, or haphazardly sprint around the map, dragging objects from previous rooms across the map with chaotic abandon. Still, at this stage, the combat feels rather flimsy.

There’s little weight to sword swings or arrow shots, basic and heavy attacks feeling unsatisfyingly simplistic. While Glomade has attempted to compensate with a slew of ‘zany’ abilities – a force push-esque knock back and an AOE horse leg that stomp on opponents – they’re tools that are mindless rather than built for mastery. With many unlockable abilities promised down the line, let’s hope for more exciting combat possibilities to flesh out the mashing.

“As you’d expect from ex-Media Molecule and Lionhead creators, King of Meat is unabashedly silly,  revelling in having you shove fellow players off cliffs”

Despite these minor issues, I enjoyed my time with Glomade’s quirky debut. Whether King of Meat can do enough to survive the cutthroat multiplayer landscape remains to be seen, but it’s hard to deny that it’s a game made with love. With Glomade hinting at a PVP mode coming post launch, and it already featuring more stages than you can shake a hammer at, King of Meat looks set to offer a generous helping of family-friendly fun.

“King of Meat is the mediaeval Running Man, where you got stamped on by horse hoofs and belched off cliffs.. and maybe even at the same time,” pitches Hopper, with a smile, “It’s the game that we want to make and that we want to play. It’s fun, it’s stupid, and it’s a place where you can have a great time.”