About the game
Overcooked is a 2016 cooking simulation game developed by Ghost Town Games and published by Team17. In a local cooperative game, players control a number of chefs in kitchens filled with obstacles and hazards and rush to prepare meals to order under a time limit. It was released for PlayStation 4, Windows and Xbox One on August 2, 2016, and a Nintendo Switch version followed in July 2017.
Players take the role of chefs who prepare ingredients, cook, serve and clean up while the clock runs. Orders arrive in a queue, and finishing each one correctly earns coins, with bonuses for speed. Orders served wrongly earn nothing and only waste time. You are ranked on a three-star system based on the coins you collect.
The kitchen layouts change from level to level and are built to split the work. One kitchen is on the back of two trucks moving at different speeds, another sits on an iceberg, and in another a crosswalk lets pedestrians get in your way. There are about 28 different kitchens in the campaign, plus a final boss level.
Overcooked was designed as a local co-op game for up to four players. There is also a competitive multiplayer option where chefs try to score the most points in a limited time. In single player you control two chefs and switch between them. There are no online multiplayer modes in the original game.
Ghost Town Games was founded by Phil Duncan and Oli De-Vine, who had worked at Frontier Developments for around eight years, and Overcooked was their first game. The kitchen setting came from Duncan's past work as a barman and waiter. They took the game to festivals and conventions for feedback, and the feedback moved the focus from recipes to level design. Team17 announced in May 2016 that it would publish the game.
Overcooked got generally positive reviews, with praise for the dynamics of co-op play. It was nominated for four awards at the 13th British Academy Games Awards and won two, Best British Game and Best Family Game. A sequel, Overcooked 2, came out in August 2018, and a remastered bundle of both games, Overcooked! All You Can Eat, launched in November 2020.
The text above is adapted from Wikipedia and licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
What critics said
Metacritic 80 out of 100 from 13 reviews (Xbox One).
Extra content
Two content packs came out for the Xbox One version in 2016. The Lost Morsel is a paid pack and Festive Seasoning was free.
- The Lost Morsel: Six new campaign levels in a jungle world, a helicopter on the world map, a jungle theme and six chefs.
- Festive Seasoning: Eight co-op levels in a Winter Lodge theme, two new dishes (turkey dinner and stew), a reindeer and a snowman chef, a flamethrower, Santa hats and a snowmobile on the world map.
Good to know
- In single player you run two chefs and switch between them, or use a control scheme that moves both at once.
- The kitchens include trucks moving at different speeds, an iceberg and a haunted forest, and there is a final boss level.
- Festive Seasoning came out for free on December 6, 2016 on Xbox One and PS4.
- The boxed Gourmet Edition came out in Europe a month earlier than in the US.
- The Xbox One list has 11 achievements worth 1,000 gamerscore, and the first one is worth only 1 point.
