I don’t think the humor that Amazon and Glowmade’s latest project, King of Meat, was going for fully hit me until after my first match and an in-universe ad for “Mom’s Spit” flashed on-screen. It’s been two weeks since I played King of Meat during a press preview in Los Angeles, and a day hasn’t gone by that I haven’t thought of it.
What actually is Mom’s Spit? What is it used for? Is it single origin, or are we talking about a blend of various moms? Why can’t I stop thinking about this?
King of Meat is an over-the-top hack-and-slash co-op combat game where players battle through player-created dungeons, all in the name of entertaining the masses and rampant commercialism. King of Meat will be coming to PC, Xbox Series S|X, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch and will support cross-progression between all versions, which is nice.
Set in the mystical world of Loregok, King of Meat is set in a world that crosses fantasy with a world laden with influencers and where everything is controlled by corporations. Players will hack, slash, parkour, and survive various dungeons in the heart of the Komstruct Koliseum, earning fame and glory with each swing of their sword and every intense combo pulled off.
One thing that is clear from King of Meat at the jump is just the incredible creativity around Glowmade’s upcoming game. The world is dripping with humor and satire; it’s colorful yet has a macabre cartoonish art style that initially reminded me of Cuphead. Yet as I stepped into the Ironlaw Plaza, King of Meat’s player hub, I immediately had another thought that has stuck with me ever since: this feels like a demented version of Disney’s ToonTown.
Everywhere I looked, neon advertisements or places to spend my hard-earned currency loomed, whether it was for Orsa’s Owlfitters or the cheeky smile of Komstruct’s unhinged mascot, Buzzworth Billy, it felt like stepping into a darker version of my wholesome Saturday morning cartoons. This seeps into the actual dungeons you can play, as each offers its share of wacky enemies to defeat, puzzles to solve, and currency to earn that you turn right around and spend at the various corporations that dominate the world of Loregok.
User-generated dungeons are at the heart of King of Meat. They are the meat and potatoes of the world that Glowmade are building, and the co-op combat game is being built with the idea of UGC helping to keep its dungeons and the spectacle fresh and interesting. Each dungeon will be different, with various puzzles and traps that players can create using King of Meat’s Creator Mode using the same tools as the developers to build the game.
Some dungeons will be more combat-focused, such as needing to clear wave after wave of enemies before the door to the next room unlocks. Others, however, might need you to uncover a key by throwing bombs at the walls until they crumble to the ground. One might feature a ton of parkour, where the floor is literally lava.
Or you can build dungeons with all of these features and much more. If you can imagine it - and beat it yourself - your dungeon will become playable for the public.
That aspect is crucial as well: beating it yourself. Sure, anyone can create a massive dungeon with an absolutely high difficulty ceiling. Yet if it can’t be beaten, then what’s the point? Ensuring it’s playable and beatable, whether solo or with a part of four, is a nice touch that I appreciate from Glowmade to cut down on dungeons being difficult for difficulty’s sake.
It’s this element of creativity that Glowmade hopes will help King of Meat stand out among the crowd of live service games out there vying for player attention.
“I think, in terms of standing out, we are really excited about our Create Mode, and giving the community the tools to make some really incredible levels,” studio head Jonny Hopper told us in a follow-up email interview. He continued, “So with King of Meat you have this co-op game with fun gameplay, mechanics, progression, but you also have this really intuitive creation tool which is going to inject some hugely creative content in to the game, and we think that’s a really interesting mix. I just talked about post-launch plans where we can add events, features, functionality, new weapons and so forth, and that very much includes Create Mode too, where we can add features for players to be able to create scenarios and dungeons with those new features. So the mix of those two things together makes us feel like we have something special.”
Sitting down with a few journalist colleagues and one of Glowmade’s devs, we dove headlong into our first dungeon. Gameplay is easy to pick up and understand, meaning most of the time was spent trying to figure out and overcome the puzzles ahead of us, not the controls themselves.
There are both light and heavy attacks, which you can weave into strings of combos to set the crowd apart. There’s also a simple dodge that can help you get out of trouble if you’re quick enough. Each character has a ranged weapon as well, which can unload arrows at enemies, traps, or puzzles. Thankfully, there isn’t any need to be on the lookout for ammo drops, this replenishes over time as you’ve used them.
Right now there are only two melee weapons in King of Meat: a sword and a comically large hammer, but each one feels different in motion. The Sword is great for hacking, slashing, and doing quick strikes, though it may not necessarily deal a ton of damage each time. The Hammer, meanwhile, is slower but does much more damage.
Each player is equipped with special abilities that can work to clear an area or cause general chaos. An area-of-effect attack that sees you belch poison can both damage and knock back enemies - or allies, while another special attack we got frequent use from saw a giant horse hoove come crashing to the ground from on high, smiting those under its heel and stunning foes nearby.
It gets quite chaotic at times, with everyone belching God-like horse hooves slamming to the ground, all while enemies, bombs and other hazards are running around the place. It’s in these intense moments where the crowd is most into the action, driving up your total score. Score high enough and you’ll secure a gold medal, which can be used to buy new skills in Ironlaw Plaza.
One thing I was afraid of as I went into our play session was whether each dungeon would feel the same. With every dungeon, including the ones the devs build, using the same assets, how varied could they be? Thankfully, I was proven wrong, as each dungeon felt both visually and mechanically different. This is also something that will be built on as well in post-launch content drops, according to Hopper, and it will be a mix of Glowmade’s own ideas, as well as feedback from the community with what they would like to see from the create tool.
One of my favorite moments saw myself and my team in a large arena, bombs all around us, begging to be flung at…well…anything. We were on the high ground, with a large slope that was clearly designed to allow us to roll our bombs or bomb barrels down at our foes. However, I got it into my head that while my comrades would sling explosives, I’d be in the thick of the action, tearing things up with my sword and shield.
I’m fairly certain I died a few times, mostly from explosions than any skeletons, if the smudge in my notebook is to be read clearly. It was roaring fun, though, and I fancied myself the arena fighter who was drumming up the crowd’s fervor by not only leaping into danger but also seeing how long I could go before an ally’s bomb took me and the enemies around me out at the same time.
Player creativity is at the heart of what Glowmade is building here, and it extends not just to the UGC dungeons but also to how players express themselves through their avatars. You earn currency you can use to buy cosmetic armor and weapons after each match from one of the various corporations out there (Orsa’s Owlfitters being one place). The armor and weapons are just that: cosmetic, but they can be the perfect vehicle to let your personality shine through.
While my character was premade when I sat down, I didn’t really alter her in the slightest. Hot pink and black striping covered my character, whose pigtails and giant heart sword reminded me of a manic pixie Harley Quinn - just shorter. Those cosmetics can also bring a weapon effect, such as my setup, which saw a giant heart rush out from underneath me when I slammed my sword to the ground after jumping. Again, this is all cosmetic, but it allows for some stellar ways to express your creativity.
While my character looked like a shortened version of a manic pixie dream girl, other cosmetic items could make you dress up like a Samurai, or you can just as easily run around with a lifesaver wrapped around your waist and a giant squid head for a helmet. The choice is literally yours.
For a game all about user-generated content and leaning into the community’s creativity, I wondered if those loading screen ads, such as Mom’s Spit (seriously, what is it?) or Meat Milk, could one day be player-made ads. We’ve seen this before in games like EVE Online, where player-made ads can adorn the billboards inside and around the outside of stations. Glowmade wouldn’t necessarily rule this out, nor would they confirm it will ever happen - but one can dream. It’s simply a question of moderation.
However, the question I have still since leaving (besides pondering the origin of Mom’s Spit) is how King of Meat will stand up amongst the sea of live service titles available out there. Live service games are a dime a dozen, but Glowmade’s studio head, Jonny Hopper, tells us that the team has a “robust post-launch roadmap” to keep players interested as time goes on.
“We’re planning a robust post-launch roadmap and are looking ahead as far as three years down the line as we have big plans with what we want to do, so whilst we’re excited about what the game has to offer at launch, we are also focused on ensuring that post-launch we have a steady cadence of content coming.
We’ll be detailing what that looks like a little later in the campaign, but we are excited about where we can take the narrative, and of course there is a lot we can do with weapons, glory moves, skins, cosmetics, events, features and so forth. The other side of that though is listening to what the community wants. We recognise the importance of hearing what our players want, and that’s the beauty of this kind of game, we are setting ourselves up to be able to be reactive, and to listen to and work with the community so we can deliver content they will love.”
It helps that the humor I so often associate with British-developed games is front and center in King of Meat. The studio’s founders all worked together at Fable developer Lionhead Games, and while those games are dripping with the dry wit and the observational humor that I grew up on, studio co-founder Mike Green tells me that this humor is simply a result of the team who is making King of Meat.
“I think the humor, calling our Lionhead, it was a great place to work,” Green told me during an interview at the press event. He continued, “It was a similar deal there, it was the result of the people there. I think being British, like we’ve grown up on all sorts of different comedy shows that [are] on the edge sometimes. You can have comedy shows that make you feel uncomfortable, and that’s why it’s sort of funny. It’s a darker humor. And I think that’s the stuff that’s always kind of interested me.”
This shines through in the world-building of King of Meat. The rampant commercialization of what should be a traditional high-fantasy setting. Running around Ironlaw, this becomes clearer if you look closely enough.
Remember Buzzworth Billy? Someone has to have done the buzzsaw mascot costume - only it doesn’t seem as though his corporate overlords are willing to let him out. Running around the back of Billy reveals a zipper complete with padlock, which leads to some interesting questions.
Remember those waves of skeletons you have to kill in the ultimate game of survival, all for the entertainment of the masses and the influencers? They’re employees, as Green points out in our interview. Simply employees all looking to make a living wage and come home to their families at night, with aspirations all their own. When you stop to think about all this, it’s that witty humor that makes you slightly uncomfortable.
Honestly, I left the session thinking about Blackadder Goes Forth, a season of the British comedy sitcom series Blackadder starring Rowan Atkinson. It was a season that really made me think and feel slightly uncomfortable in between all the laughs, something that Glowmade has accomplished here.
Right now, I’m really looking forward to more of King of Meat whenever Amazon and Glowmade release it. I honestly want to explore more of this world, dripping with dark humor and creativity from every pixel.
Also, I need to learn what Mom’s Spit really is - cause even Glowmade didn’t give me a straight answer when I asked them.
