PlayStation 4 Critic Reviews

Gang Beasts' madcap brawling creates a dynamic alliance between conflict and chaos. It also enables human responses like surprise, merriment, revenge, and screaming. Driving a wobbly creature to comically murder another flailing mess, as it turns out, is a pleasant and repeatable practice. If only three of your friends could always come along for the ride.

At the end of the day, Gang Beasts is a straight-up treat. It’s perfect for those looking for a new game to play with friends (maybe while waiting for Smash Bros. to finally come to Switch). The technical difficulties encountered are outweighed by the enormous amounts of fun to be had. Gang Beasts has so much character and moments of hilarity that it can’t be recommended enough. Gang Beasts runs $19.99 and with the promise of free new game modes, maps and other features on the horizon, it’s worth the pair of Andrew Jacksons.

Gang Beasts is a game for friends. It's funny, silly and inconsequential. With a huge array of costumes to wear and places to brawl, you can play one game or ten and have a great time.

Not quite the classic it could have been, and the appeal wanes with time, but still a strong party starter. [Feb 2018, p.72]

A stumbling and flailing spectacle of a physics brawler, Gang Beasts might have all the poise and grace of a bar dust up on a Friday night, but it remains hugely entertaining when played with friends all the same.

Gang Beasts has a special touch on its core mechanic, a good mix between funny physics and functional scenarios that will make you laugh like no other game if you have friends to play on local multiplayer. Unfortunately after a long early access the game still feels unfinished with technical problems and terrible servers to play online.

Gang Beasts is one of those games I wanted to try because it captured the attention of a small, but vocal portion of the Internet. Like Battlegrounds, this ended up being a game I’d rather watch other people play. The controls don’t feel particularly intuitive and are pretty punishing for new players. You’re going to take more than a fair share of lumps before the game “clicks.” On the other hand, I think you'll get the most out of the game by playing it with friends in the same room, especially since online matches can easily be one- or two-sided. Despite being a published video game, Gang Beasts has the feel of an early access title. For it to be something accessible to a larger audience, I think it needs more time to bake.

While there's online support, it's a bit too sterile compared to offline matchups. [Feb 2018, p.91]

Gang Beasts never pretends to be a single-player experience; it's a party game through and through. Even though there's only so much depth that can be found in imprecisely manipulating ragdoll physics, the end result is still oddly compelling. While Gang Beasts is not the kind of game that will find its way into the eSports circuit, players will still find a lot to love as they fight and fall and laugh at all the ways they succeed or fail in its oddball arenas.

Even if I’m less than impressed with some of the game’s technical shortcomings and overbalancing, Gang Beasts still delivered some of the funniest moments I’ve had in gaming, and that joy will stay with me for some time.