Teardown starts slow, with a few jobs that introduce you individually to the concepts of smashing and grabbing: maki𓆏ng way for a shopping mall bওy knocking down an old eyesore that turns out to be a historical center (oops), and "sneaking" into a chemical plant to steal a bunch of computers, respectively. There's joy to be had in the simple act of circling a blocky building, working out which spots to hit with your sledgehammer to bring it down in as few swings as possible - then just beating the hell out of whatever's still standing. The calming release of mindless destruction was especially welcome this week.

But it's when you put the "smash" and the "grab" together that Teardown goes from self-justified exercise in mayhem to one-person heist simulator. Another mission sent me back to the same plant. This time I needed to grab keycard readers, but the owner got wise from last time; grabbing any reader would summon the cops in 60 seconds, and I needed to snag three readers b🦂efore fleeing in my escape van. Thus began roughly a dozen minutes of casing the joint to find a speedy route past all three targets, lobbing propane tanks to knock down walls that were blocking the said route, and hastily spray painting a path so - once I started the score - I could focus exclusively on legging it.

 

on October 29, and it only contains a fraction of what the developers at Tuxedo Labs eventually plan to do with it. They're hoping to turn the direction of the game's environments, tools, vehicles, and more toward what players most enjoy. But even if the developers dropped off the face of the earth right now and Teardown remained frozen in time, I'd still be very happy with my $19.99 purchase. Sometimes I'm in the mood to just break things. I'm always in the mood to break things very deliberately.