Ever play Grand Theft Auto 2 and wish you could do more damage? Everyone has. Running around and shooting up the streets is fun, but the real joy is running over pedestrians and smashing through obstacles in blazing glory. It may suck to die and respawn and frantically look for another fast car for ten minutes, but the adrenaline rush was transcendental, bordering on mystical, yet not enough.
Something Grand Theft Auto or Saints Row can only go so far with their levels of destruction. The sad reality is that having large open worlds introduces a new limitation on game design. What if there was a game that didn’t care and ignored convention? Can there be an open world sandbox where everything is destructible?
Deliver At All Costs takes the open world mission structure found in the likes of classic GTA and puts an absurd spin on it. In a game where the only weapon is goofy physics and inertia, can the simple act of delivery be elevated? Find out in our Deliver At All Costs review!
This is a review coupled with a supplemental video review. You can watch the video review or read the full review of the below:
Deliver At All Costs
Developer: Studio Far Out Games
Publisher: Konami
Platforms: Windows PC, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 (reviewed)
Release Date: May 15, 2025
Price: $29.99
Video games are inherently funny. It doesn’t matter how serious the story or tone may be; the minute you put a controller in front of the player, you are bound to see the characters do something funny.
Master Chief teabags fallen Spartans, Solid Snake humps walls, Simon Belmont moonwalks, and Link is a compulsive chicken abuser. Deliver at All Costs is built around this phenomenon.
It’s the summer of 1959, and Winston Green, a bright and promising engineer with a mysterious past, has fallen from grace. He lives daily in a motel, scraping by as days blur together in a hazy miasma, taking odd jobs where he can.
Becoming a delivery man is the best he can get, but little does he know, this menial job sets him on course to deliver humanity from certain annihilation.
Winston is a surprisingly deep, well-written, and excellently performed character for such a silly and absurd game. He’s a man pushed to the brink, and as his sanity unravels, so does the state of the town.
On one hand, his story is weirdly grounded and personal, yet he is trapped in a video game that’s like a mix of Blast Corps and Death Stranding.
The amusing clashing of tones miraculously melds playfully and makes the comedy funnier and the gravity of the drama hit harder. It’s not always meant to be taken seriously, but you’ll still be drawn into the story and cast of colorful characters.
The setting is also a breath of fresh air. The idealized late 50s Americana is an underrated era, and everywhere you go, you hear old-timey tunes and see retro graphic design.
Aside from being able to rip off parked cars and plow them into pedestrians, Deliver At All Costs isn’t like GTA at all. The violence is kept cartoony, and it’s impossible to kill anyone.
Even when smashing a Plymouth Fury into a granny, she’ll get back up like a Terminator and chase you down to give you an earful and shove you or Hulk-smash Winston’s vehicle in a blind rage.
Winston doesn’t get a gun or any weapons. The most offensive he gets is an ineffectual kick meant for breaking wooden caches of cash or a wimpy shove. There is no death at all.
Getting accosted by the cops resets his position, falling in water is an instant respawn, and breaking Winston’s legs from falling at terminal velocity leads to him getting back up like nothing happened.
Deliver At All Costs is not a crime game, but Winston will be tasked with missions in a big, open city with load screens dividing each district. The fixed isometric POV can be rotated only by two angles, and driving feels fluid and natural despite the distance perspective.
Running around the town feels natural, and Winston can climb ladders and shimmy across ledges. While he’s fairly mobile, most of the core game requires Winston behind the wheel and contending with the laws of physics while making deliveries in the main missions.
This may seem simple, but in Deliver at All Costs, anything goes. The physics in this game gets wild, and the simple act of driving can feel like trying to hold a coked-up wolverine on a leash.
Varied and bizarre, imaginative challenges are constantly being thrown at you, and never repeat. The friction is high, but the challenge is very forgiving since the physics will lead to unpredictable situations, which are guaranteed to get a laugh from any gamer.
Winston’s vehicles can take a beating, and he can even fix them up should they lose a tire. The physics reacts convincingly while driving. Cars have a palpable heft and weight when swerving and turning. Driving over bumps and ramps at top speeds gives an exaggerated amount of airtime to make it feel satisfying.
Every mission finds funny ways to tweak the physics parameters to make scenarios challenging. Driving a pick-up truck with a massive, fidgeting marlin that needs to be fed is trickier than you’d think. Being tied to an ever-expanding supply of helium balloons makes Winston’s ride waft in the air when driving off inclines.
No matter what, Deliver at All Costs keeps the action flowing without too much friction. There is almost no penalty for messing up, and failing means a quick restart at a liberally placed checkpoint.
You can even smash through most obstacles without causing too much damage to Winston’s trusty truck. Pretty much every building on the island is seemingly made of Styrofoam and cardboard because bumping into a wall makes it crumble.
The destruction effects in Deliver at All Costs are next level and impressive despite its modest scope. The player is like a hurricane when behind the wheel, and it’s so easy and addictive to lay waste to everything and everyone on screen.
Pretty much everything is a target and can be destroyed, and every single piece of it gets flung around and smashed to bits with a high frame rate. The effect is marvelous and hypnotic.
Causing endless property damage never gets old, but it can also lead to getting stuck on geometry. Sadly, this is the trade-off of having such a dynamic physics system. The developers seemingly anticipated this and included a respawn option for the inevitable occasion.
Getting stuck in debris is the worst thing that can happen to you, and it’s barely a speed bump. Getting around is easy thanks to the aggressive use of yellow paint and yellow arrows that guide players to their destination.
This would typically be an annoyance in any other game, but Deliver at All Costs has dense breakable objects and interactables that make it easy to miss things or get lost.
The visuals make use of a shallow depth of field, making the city look almost like a miniature in most shots. The graphics are impressive, and load times between districts are fast. Lighting is consistent with the ever-changing time of day, and even the water looks juicy.
The only disappointment is the characters during cutscenes. They resemble animatronic facsimiles and lack expressions and fluid facial animation. It’s too bad the attention to detail is rough here, especially since the story calls for some heavy scenes of Winston’s sanity slipping.
Fans of Blast Corps will adore Deliver at All Costs. It doesn’t feature construction equipment or mechs, but it has lots of destruction and even a doomsday event. The absurd gameplay will draw you in, but the compelling character study will keep you hooked to the end.
Deliver At All Costs was reviewed on PlayStation 5 using a code provided by Konami. Additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy is here. Deliver At All Costs is now available for PC (via Steam), PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.
