Destruction AllStars

Overall, if Destruction AllStars was entirely focused on the driving and crashing aspects, this review would be a hands-down recommendation. I just wish it didn’t come to a complete stop as often as it does when you lose control of the car. It does interesting things with the DualSense’s adaptive triggers and has a satisfying loop but comes to a screeching halt in other areas. Lucid Games has promised at least a year of new content for the game following its release, so hopefully, things will be fixed over time. Waiting for a fix, however, isn’t how I like to enjoy games. Luckily, Destruction ...

Sony's latest first-party title is fantastic fun, but needs balancing and more content.

Destruction AllStars delivers delightful carnage and non-stop mayhem, but issues with progression, monetization, and some poorly designed modes hold it back. Hopefully, Lucid Games and Sony will continue to build on this excellent foundation, because Destruction AllStars has the potential to be a special game with a little bit of work.

Destruction AllStars was revealed as one of the PS5-exclusive launch highlights before being pushed back to February 2021 to release free via PlayStation Plus. This move was for the best, because I cannot see how it would have been successful at the $70 premium it was planned for. That’s not to say that Destruction AllStars is a bad game at all. In fact, what’s there is a blast, with over-the-top style and exceptional production values. It just lacks a sense of depth beyond the surface multiplayer experience, which can wear out its welcome more quickly than anticipated.

Destruction AllStars looks great and is fun to play, but balance issues negatively affect gameplay, and overbearing microtransactions mar the experience.

Destruction AllStars can provide short bursts of action-packed chaos that are at their most fun when kept simple. The driving and vehicle-to-vehicle combat are highly enjoyable when you’re slamming into other cars at high speed, but they wear thin quickly and offer very little else on closer inspection and the on-foot gameplay you’re forced into too often feels pointless. With hit-and-miss modes, single-player content hidden behind a paywall, and poor cosmetics on offer, there’s a disappointing lack of depth beneath the loud crashes, bangs, and wallops that feel so exciting at first. The roste...

Destruction AllStars is quite a frustrating game. Not really because of anything the game does wrong, but because it clearly holds a lot of potential. As an idea, it sounds great: a destruction derby style title that keeps you in the action with on-foot gameplay when you're between vehicles. In practice, while it does succeed in some ways, it misses the mark in others. What we end up with is a car combat game that feels confident but underwhelms in areas it should shine.

Destruction AllStars is a clunky mess of a multiplayer experience, committing a few cardinal sins when it comes to its online experience and offering uninteresting and dull gameplay most of the time. Each character feels unique and their abilities and vehicles are fun to use, but when meshed with the rest of the experience, it doesn't work. Predatory microtransactions, a lack of lore and backstory into the AllStars, and poor single-player offerings make this the weakest PlayStation Studios title in a long time.

Scratch the surface and you'll find a very shallow car combat game that simply doesn't have what it needs to pull you back in over and over again. Destruction AllStars is unlikely to be the next PlayStation Plus success story.

Destruction AllStars can be an enjoyable Twisted Metal-like experience for those nostalgic for that, but once you feel the frustration of the crashing mechanic and realize there isn’t much to work towards, you’ll probably turn around and use that nitrous in the opposite direction.

My first take on Destruction AllStars was simply: it’s okay. I then spent the next few days trying to decide if that’s all it was. I then changed my mind: it’s forgettable, but okay as a free game on PS+. Truthfully it comes across like a game that just completed an already polished round of development and the content team and mechanics team is going to come in now to do additional passes. But it’s already out and supposedly feature complete.

“Destruction AllStars features satisfying crashes amid a 50 car pileup of bizarre design choices.”