Want to virtually kill your friends as a pizza chasing sloth? Of course you do. Such a common question with a perfect answer – Battlesloths 2025: The Great Pizza War! So don your hat or disembodied head of choice, and prepare to fight for the glory of pepperoni or mushroom. This twin stick shooter from Invisible Collective is a quick treat, but may not be according to everybody’s taste.
Also, be forewarned I am biased towards couch co-op games. Any game that includes this feature is always welcome in my book. That aside, let us move towards the meat of this review (and cheesy charm of the game).
Story
In 2024, all humans are dead. That is right, in a scant seven years we will be sucked away to who knows where. With hardly any other exposition, the Battlesloths have taken over the Earth. Why? How? Did we experiment on them like monkeys? Who cares? In addition to that, the Battlesloths are armed to the teeth; hungry for pizza and sloth-on-sloth violence. It does beg the question, who is cooking the pizza in this post-apocalyptic world?
Fighting is worldwide in Battlesloths 2025: The Great Pizza War. Including common places like Land’o Cake, Mayan Temples, and Hell; Battlesloth’s gather pizza while being diced, disemboweled, and decimated by the opposing sides. And that is it… not much more to say on that… let’s see if I can throw in another slice of puns in there…
8 out of 10
(Because pizza is lovely and sloths are fantastic. And let’s be honest, what kind of story do we need other than the intro rap song Battlesloths 2025?)
Graphics
Like many indie titles, Battlesloths 2025 is pixel-based. Nothing to write home about, but at the same time it is simple and easy to understand the chaos. Even the guns are detailed in a way that it is easy to understand how it works prior to picking them up. Battlesloths is colorful enough to keep each stage unique, while retaining the simplistic design reminiscent of games in the 90’s. The hats are a nice touch to add some flair and also to make it easier to keep track of your sloth, even though the color difference is usually enough. Overall, not truly inspired but it is serviceable enough to not detract from the game.
Graphical performance is fine at 1080p with no hiccups, screen tearing, or any other noted issues. Performance issues should not be anticipated in a game similar to this, but it is always nice to not deal with a buggy mess.
7 out of 10
Sound
The sound design is actually above average on this game, which is great compared to many indie fares on the market. The gunshots ring true with enough oomph, although lacking a bit in the LFE department. The music, however, shines through with some decent tracks that do not overstay their welcome through each round. It is enough to keep the player interested in blowing up other sloths and gathering pizza slices off the bloody floor.
7.5 out of 10
Gameplay
As stated before, Battlesloths 2025: The Great Pizza War is a twin stick shooter with a smattering of smart, borrowed elements. A great example of this, which definitely inspired Battlesloths, is the Hotline Miami series. If Hotline Miami and Super Smash Brothers had a sloth baby, it would be this game. Borrowed inspiration aside, the controls are tight and easy to grasp. With the ease of getting into a piece of the action, Battlesloths also has included dodging and other stratagem to keep it from getting stale.
Currently, the game lacks in diversity for game modes. Battlesloths includes both offline and online multiplayer, and a simple challenge mode to introduce the elements of the game to the player. Game modes in Battlesloths are your basic Capture the Flag (or pizza in this case) and Deathmatch variants. Also, the movements speed is selectable to choose between a strategic sloth pace or frenetic twitch-response speed.
The true problem lies with the lack of online community, as always. Battlesloths is no exception to an increasingly thin online player base, and I was unable to connect to a match on Steam after a few minutes. However, to alleviate this issue, the option to put bots in Battlesloths is available and the bots do a decent job of adding more chaos. Battlesloths, in its current state, is essentially a couch co-op only game unless it finds a way to entice the fickle online user base to support it.
Of course, some might want to ask “How does Battlesloths 2025 play with the keyboard/mouse?” No clue, and not going to bother. Sorry to any PCMR people that are triggered out there…
7 out of 10
Verdict
Overall, Battlesloths 2025 is an enjoyable pick-up game to enjoy offline with some friends. Hell, order a pizza and make a drinking game out of it! However, the game is hard to recommend unless more content is added and/or the online portion sees some user base growth. Since local multiplayer titles are hard to come by, it definitely is a welcome addition and with more support Battlesloths could provide hours upon hours of cheesy fun.
