Hands-On Preview: Chip ‘N Clawz vs. The Brainioids – A Co-op RTS with Overcooked-Style Chaos

From the moment you lay eyes on its ridiculous title, you have a pretty good sense of what you’re getting into with the action-strategy adventure, Chip ‘n Clawz vs. The Brainioids. After spending a few hours exploring its animated world, I can confirm it’s just as outlandish and over-the-top as its name suggests. This vibrant co-op game channels that Saturday-morning cartoon vibe, bursting with bright colors, absurd humor, wacky aliens, and voices that might take you back to your childhood TV shows. It successfully combines third-person action with real-time strategy in a way that truly grabbed my attention. But don’t be deceived by its seemingly family-friendly exterior! With Julian Gollop, the mind behind XCOM, at the project’s helm, the game quickly revealed just how cunningly challenging it could be, piquing my curiosity for what’s next.

Diving headfirst into the madness right from the start, Chip ‘n Clawz vs. The Brainioids doesn’t worry about laying out its nutty premise. Honestly, that works well for me. What’s there to misunderstand? You’ve got a reckless human named Chip and his robot kitten pal, Clawz, battling a peculiar alien species — brains in jars known as the Brainioids. Together with a friend, I fought through increasingly challenging levels, facing off against determined alien foes sent by the not-so-military figure, General Blobbius, who is, hilariously enough, the general manager of the Brainioids corporation. The game doesn’t take itself seriously whatsoever — a decision that works entirely in its favor. Each level, with its vibrant backdrops, dorky enemies, and ongoing kiddish banter, crafts an inviting, kid-friendly atmosphere. This had me believe I might just breeze through it, even though I had amped things up by choosing hard mode.

Our primary mission across most levels was straightforward: wade through alien throngs and bring down the mothership situated at the map’s edge. To accomplish this, we leveraged swarms of robotic minions as allies. This called for cooperative strategies—gathering Brainium (our essential building resource) and making strategic calls on expenditure—whether that involved setting up new factories or enhancing unit capabilities for improved battle efficiency. Initially, the game might seem like a standard action title with mild RTS dynamics, but it quickly evolved. With every new stage, things became increasingly hectic, escalating to the point where we found ourselves both laughing and shouting at the screen in urgency, beset with enemies on all sides. It’s clear that Chip ‘n Clawz knows its stuff when it comes to real-time strategy. Between bouts of melee combat, I frequently switched over to manage our build and command modes, creating facilities or directing our minion army.

There’s a plethora of strategic decisions to navigate as the game introduces new buildable factories, units to command, and upgrades for customizing your character’s abilities. For instance, you might opt for a perk that boosts the speed and resilience of your resource-gathering mining units or decide to amplify your melee weapon damage for more personally hands-on battles. Depending on the level, you might want to spend your Brainium on new gear from an artillery depot, like a long-range weapon, or choose to build stationary turrets for automatic defense.

Throughout these challenges, the frantic chaos combined with relentless alien mobs often reminded me of the Overcooked series, with its deceptively simple mechanics and cheery design that cleverly cloak the friendships-teetering intensity that unfolds during gameplay. In much the same vein, Chip ‘n Clawz cunningly hides its tough-as-nails difficulty behind approachable RTS accessibility and engaging third-person action. What begins as a seemingly laid-back experience soon cranks up the difficulty sharply, demanding more reliance on its RTS components as levels progress.

Having only just scratched the surface of this unexpectedly deep strategy game, I’m eagerly anticipating the mayhem that awaits in later levels.