King of Meat, the upcoming co-op party platformer that is being developed by Glowmade and published by Amazon Games, was on display at Summer Game Fest’s Play Days. King of Meat has come a long way since we previewed it back in August 2024. The big thing that was debuted was the game’s Create Mode.
During Summer Game Fest Play Days, we got the chance to go hands-on with King of Meat to play some dungeons, but also try out this newly debuted Create Mode. King of Meat’s is a multiplayer party platformer where 1-4 players battle enemies, solve puzzles, and traverse the environment to clear dungeons. Every aspect of your character is customizable, from how you dress to weapon loadout. Players will have tons of options not only for aesthetic purposes, but also for playstyle.
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Create Mode is a modular dungeon builder that allows players to create their very own dungeons. These user-created dungeons will not only be available for yourself and friends, but the community as well. Players will be able to upload their created dungeon for the community to play. Players will also be able to rate these community-created dungeons that can lead to them getting promoted into the mainstream of the game via hand-picked curation.
King of Meat debuted its new Create More, and it’s great.
I know, for myself, I am not a big person who creates my own dungeon or park or whatever type of game the game may have. This is usually due to how long it takes to learn the systems and the building mechanics that are involved. King of Meat‘s Create Mode using the a modular dungeon building system is relatively easy. Players will select the size of room they wish to use or if they would like a hallway and just snap them together. This top-down layout overview with modular snapping rooms makes it quite simple for a player to see how their dungeon will look and the number of rooms.
In our interview with Glowmade last year, we spoke with Glowmade’s Executive Producer Jim Unwin and Creative Director Mike Green. About the game, Unwin said, “When we started, one of my touch points was memories of playing Mario Kart on the SNES and that kind of back and forth you would have with people about trying to win—but also trying to spoil it a little bit and laughing as people fail. And, you know, that tension of two people getting to the finish line. For me, even though everybody’s going to be playing in separate physical spaces, they’re going to have that [co-operative competition, co-opetition]—it’s a terrible portmanteau—of wanting to work together but still wanting to win.”
Once players are done making their basic dungeon rooms now is where the real creativity takes place. Players will be able select from a variety of puzzles, monsters, platforming challenges, and even just general decorations for each their dungeon rooms. As players progress in the game and complete challenges they will be able to obtain more items to use in the dungeons.
King of Meat is a co-op party game, but with all the creative freedom and choices, the Create Mode will be something that players can spend plenty of time delving into. The developers said that every official dungeon in the game was made in the Create Mode.
This is because they wanted to make it so that if a player played in an official dungeon, they could go back later and add that challenge to their own dungeon. They wanted to give players the creative freedom when making these dungeons, but also make sure they were expansive enough to account for all possible player creations.
Co-op, community, and creativity build a solid foundation for King of Meat.
This creativity has proben important to creating new developers in young players. During the same interview in 2024, Green answered the question: How woulf you feel if King of Meat turned players into game developers as a fateway?
“I’d love to hear stories [of that] because that’s why we set up Freeform mode,” Green said, “We want people to make things and realize that you don’t have to be a professional game. It might be their stepping stone for them to do computer science or programming or become an artist. We’ve got a team of amazing level designers, but I’m 100% sure that we’re going to see levels made by someone who maybe sat in their bedroom, and it will be better than what we’ve done.”
He continued, “They’ll hit that point, and, you know, maybe that will create a spark. I know Media Molecule employed [developers] who were just building [Little Big Planet] levels. That was their stepping stone into the games industry.”
King of Meat is a co-op and community-based game, and with Create Mode, this should really allow players to embrace both of those things. Whether it is showing off to your friends or hundreds of other random players, this will all be possible.
King of Meat is set to release on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC, and Nintendo Switch in 2025.
