Deliver At All Costs

Game Title: Deliver At All Costs
Released: May 22, 2025
Game Length: 12 Hours
Grade: B

Story

Release: Something odd happened when this game released on Steam. It was spontaneously made free on Epic Games Store. The trailer didn't really help explain what happens in the game. What it does do, however, is show the ridiculous gameplay in a beautiful fashion. You will be delivering the most unusual products across a vast landscape with very little concern to the things that get caught under the tires of your car. The deliveries will test your patience as you carry things that range from a giant fish to a ticking time bomb.

Setting: The narrative is all over the place as you try to decipher the mysteries behind the protagonist. Not only can the main character be insufferable at times with his vulgar language and backtalk, but all the characters can be portrayed as somewhat cartoonish at times. The narrator himself that informs the user of current events during transitions can have second thoughts or share an opinion. As the story unfolds, more background characters tell about events in the past tense as if you are present in a courtroom. This slowly rolls out to the final sequence after you reach the conclusion of the game. 

Timeline: There are three areas of the game that unlock as you progress the main story. The first five chapters start innocently enough when you meet kind souls that recruit you to deliver some goods when they are short on staff. After a catastrophic event destroys pretty much everything, the office moves into the mainland. Your living residence also changes from the apartments to a small trailer. While you cannot revisit your old residence or office, you can go back to collect things you might have missed. Tensions rise as you reach the 10th chapter when another major event tears you away from the company. Time passes by and you seek out the new company in yet another area in the last three chapters of the game. 

Exploration

Upgrades: There are a number of fun things you can construct for your company truck. Three of them are given to you and are provided a special "delivery" slot as they are essential for the main campaign. These include the crane to lift crates, the winch to drag things behind your truck, and the catapult to launch things forward. Otherwise, blueprints need to be obtained from any of the general stores. You can decide to buy parts individually (like rope or duct tape) or find them in red chests across the city. Auxiliary gadgets that can be used on your truck include hydraulic doors that swing open, airbags built on the outside of your vehicle, a very loud horn to scare others on the road, jet engine to go really fast, time control to slow everything down, and wheel spikes.

Abilities: Four upgrades are designated as miscellaneous. A gramophone turns your radio old-fashioned. You can buy a bike that will provide you an alternative form of travel (with its own bell too). While you might not be able to steal other people's cars, you can obtain the ability to hop into the passenger seat through the hitchhike upgrade. The mysterious key, perhaps the most essential upgrade, reveals every single thing on the map from crates to chests. 

Sites: There are tons of parked cars scattered about for you to take, but special vehicles will be exclusively marked on the map. These can be anywhere from a buggie to a golf cart. Unlike your truck, their flexibility on the road can vary from being much faster to taking turns better. Vista points allow you to see a nice scenic display of an area but may require you to navigate where there is yellow paint up ladders and across platforms. Phone booths allow you to call your truck directly to your location if destroyed or left behind. Crates are not placed randomly across the landscape but are dispersed in very specific spots. You can run over them directly or kick them to collect. You will obtain more items and currency in the later regions. Fast Travel is only unlocked later where you can take a boat from one side of the map to the other or a train from region to region. There isn't a way to instantly travel to a destination by clicking an icon on the map. 

Encounters: While you can pretty much hear one line spoken from any character you see in the game, there will be the occasional person who will provide you with an objective. These somewhat random events change up the pace of the game by giving you a little fun activity to do. Sometimes you will find civilians that are actively guarding a place that will try and stop you. If you are in your vehicle, you might even find them hanging onto the hood of your car. You can try to shake them off or even shove them down before they tag you. It is possible for the police to come after you but only after you destroy a quarter of the town. If they do, just hop into a dumpster until they give you an all-clear message. 

Missions

Setup: The game weirdly saves only between missions. If you quit while you are trying to converse with someone or before resting in your bed, you will have to do it over again. Most missions will require you to make contact on the radio and accept what can only be done in your company truck. A routine of visiting your boss at the office, receiving the delivery when you are outside, conversing with people at the office after you are done, and then heading back to bed will be pretty common for each chapter of the game.

Records: Every part of the game will be recorded in your journal. Each story segment, encounter, tutorial, object for your car, and achievements are listed in their own categories. Missions specifically will share the amount of time and respawns whenever your truck explodes. Missions with special properties are also written down. You can choose to replay the missions at any time if you want to complete certain achievements. Some examples include failing on purpose, barely completing missions in time, or entirely avoiding obstacles. 

Quality of Life

Environment: As you drive around the city, you might notice the amount of detail the developers put into the landscape. You can interact with various objects inside the office and in your place of residence. While you cannot go inside buildings, there are a number of hollow buildings you can explore for hidden collectibles. A theater can be found in the second region that shows off the team and their real life building. Almost everything can crumble or be destroyed. Trees break down and industry equipment will shoot out gas emissions. Physics is also applied by shooting your vehicle higher into the air after hitting a fire hydrant or sliding around when you hit a patch of ice on the road.

Camera: The one drawback of the game is how close your perspective is to your car and person. You can switch to a different angle but you cannot zoom out any further than what is shown. Once you get behind something, the outline of you and the structure will help paint you a picture of what is going on. When you select a mission, directional arrows are displayed on the road that point you to your objective. Yellow shows you a direct route while red points out a dangerous shortcut. However, they will not point you to any fast travel routes or ways that stray off the main road. Like GPS, the arrows will continue to update if you take another, perhaps safer, route. 

Gameplay: Your car will physically show damage as it accumulates with doors and other parts flying off as you plow through obstacles. Other cars will suddenly stop if you are about to run into them. While you can slowly tilt your vehicle back into place if it's thrown about, you can hop by pressing the button into a certain direction to make the process easier. You can skip through cutscenes and even dialogue. Headlights do come on when the story takes place during the night but can be manually turned off. Each car has their own horn that can be manually pressed for fun. Any destruction remains until you transition out into another area. Also, you don't have to return to the workshop to equip something different onto your truck.

Summary

Review: Deliver At All Costs is a wild ride. Almost every aspect of the game is filled to the brim with features from a passionate team. You can either learn to embrace its ridiculousness or tolerate the unrealistic nature of delivering things across town without any concern for public safety. The characters and story is almost mind-numbing fantastical as you learn about a strange device that tears open the fabric of reality. While the camera might bother some players and the gameplay becomes repetitive, there is an openness to the amount of content you can participate or explore in. This might not be a typical game to recommend, but there was a certain je ne sais quoi when finally coming to the end of this epic adventure.