Introduction

Ever just had one of those days where you felt like committing horrific acts of violence to vent? Yes? It's normal to have these thoughts. Everyone has them but because we are not savages, we know that our actions have consequences and thus the vast majority of us don't act on them. But what if you could? And what if you could get away with it? And what if you could earn a digital achievement for killing 1,000,000 people? Well, People Playground seems to have answered the call of duty and has given gamers one of the most savage sandboxes to date.

About People Playground

If you couldn't tell by the boxart, People Playground (PPG) is a violent game. The vast majority of your time will be spent killing people in the most vile and depraved ways you can think of. The rest of the time, you will be experimenting with the vast arsenal of items and weapons. Build super structures, drop an atom bomb on it, do it again. Or create a blackhole, or reenact your favourite atrocity. This is one bloody sandbox.

Gameplay

It's sandbox game, so there's no one way to play it. You make your own fun and it's all down to the players imagination. Maybe you don't like killing people and instead enjoy building things - the game is fully fleshed out both in killing and building so it caters to everyone. The true fun in this game is killing and trying to utilise every in game item into a weapon. Frankly it's difficult to put the gameplay into words, since the game will play differently for everyone. The gameplay is better conveyed with gifs and images, just to give you an idea of the kind of things you can do.

As you can see, both the ragdoll and gore effects are amazing and its what makes the game so replayable. You can shoot someone with the same gun for hours and they will always die differently - killing and wounding looks different every single time regardless of what instrument you use, which allows for a lot of experiments. You can also save lives, by hooking them up to a life support machine, or using defiblirators to revive unconscious humans, or by bandaging up wounds. Alot of players actually play this game more like medic simulator, which is expanded on in some mods.

PPG has a wide range of gadgets and items, all of which have use. Even a bar of soap can be used to clean up blood and guts, because no one likes an untidy killing floor. Some more unconvential items are at your disposal too, like Tesla coils, 'decimators', jukeboxes and a bunch of liquids. In fact, you can spend hours just brewing different liquids together and seeing what they do when you inject someone with them. There are syringes with liquid already in them, which all do wildly different things. One syringe can eat someones flesh from the inside, another can destroy bones and you can even inject people with heroin.

It's difficult to review PPG because there are so many cool features that explaining them here would just spoil it. The best part of the game is discovering new ways to kill people, be it accidentally or deliberately. Once you have figured out what most of the vanilla stuff does, a whole world of mods awaits you. Mods make this game and without them, gameplay would get stale. Most mods are different skins for the humans and weapon mods, and whilst you are still doing the same thing (killing people), killing different people with different weapons makes a nice change of scenery. If you've got an active imagination, PPG provides endless hours of entertainment - create your own scenarios, make up fictional wars and fictional genocides, be a super evil torturer. It sounds morbid and edgy but once you get into the game, you'll know what I'm talking about. It's easy to get carried away in this orgy of destruction.

Edgy fun

Alot of PPG mods really give the game an edge and if you're not comfortable with people making fun of war, suicide, terrorism, genocide and other horrible things, this game may not be your cup of tea. Of course, most of the mods and community are fine, but don't be too surprised if you see gas chambers and George Floyd on the Steam Workshop. Regardless, great fun can still be had and it's not like people can see what you're doing anyways.

People Playground Iceberg

Games like PPG aren't exactly known for their lore and storytelling, but PPG is a breed of its own. If you play for a while, you will begin to notice occasional noises in the background, ranging from random humming to crying. There is alot more than meets the eye with this game, and there are hundreds of threads dedicated to exploring the 'lore'. Some players think that PPG is a lab and the humans are manufactured to be used for testing. Others say you are playing as God himself. There are so many hidden secrets - the game feels like an ARG at times, and there is even a hidden code behind a background wall, which can give you access to an actual live IP camera.

Some maps, like Reactor A5, are filled to the brim with interactivity and general spookyness. You can cause a system meltdown, which will incinerate any living being on the map. I've already spoiled too much - you should read the Steam discussions or better yet, play for yourself because the mythos of PPG is surprisingly interesting.

Flaws

There's very little actually wrong with this game, as carnage is only limited by your PC specs. The game can be surprisingly demanding given its simplistic graphics, and if you're on lower end systems, frame rate issues are to be expected when blowing up alot of people. Fire seems to massively impact performance too and on my machine, it turns the fans into Apollo 11. Alot of contraptions on the workshop don't work because they were made before a paticular update, or they utilise mods, which alot don't bother to mention in the description.

Since there is no goal or direction at all, some players can be overwhelmed by the boat load of content at their finger tips. There is no in-game tutorial too, making the first hour a bit tedious if you're unfamililar with these kinds of games.

Conclusion

A sandbox in every sense of the word, PPG is a nutjob's wet dream. With so many unique ways to kill, there is endless replayability to be had - and one of the most active modding scenes on Steam, with endless discussion threads to keep you occupied for hours. But if you need a clear goal or objective, PPG is not a game for you. I have about 100 hours into it and sometimes I feel like I've done everything, but then the Steam workshop surprises me as always and gives me a new contraption, a new vehicle, new anything. And for only £7, it's hard not to buy it. It is available on GOG too, but without Steam workshop support, you're really limiting what you can do. With that being said, get this game if you enjoy murder simulator sandboxes, and if your PC can handle it.