“We don’t just harvest meats, we harvest heroes! And that’s you!”
Do you like Risk of Rain 2? Do you like meat? An odd pair of questions, sure, but humor me for a second. SWAPMEAT, developed and self-published by One More Game, is a game that manages to sell itself almost wholly through its absurd premise: What if there was a game where you collected body parts from your enemies and stitched them to your own person?
I have to admit that I was suckered in right from the get-go. The body horror premise aside, the colorful worlds you land on, the goofy humor accompanying bouncy animations and fun writing, and the allure of an infinite power creep all made me want to give SWAPMEAT a shot during its limited availability during the Steam Next Fest. Having tried its demo before its official debut, I’m more than happy to share my experiences with it.
Swapping Body Parts and Hot Lead
The future is now, and Rangus Meats is leading the charge into prosperity. A megacorporation spanning the reach of the stars, Rangus Meats has pioneered meat science, a means to take meat harvested from different sources and repurpose it into new, useful forms. As a matter of fact, you’re one of those products manufactured through meat science. As a dedicated meat scientist of Rangus Meats, you’re tasked with harvesting meat cores from planets all across the universe, all while defending yourself from the local wildlife and harvesting your own meat for better productivity. Things aren’t all cheery here, however. Even though you’re greeted by a friendly face whenever you return to headquarters, a distant threat will soon make itself known — and the benefits of meat science will quickly be put into question.
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SWAPMEAT is a rogue-lite, meaning that you’ll be dumped into a series of levels that gradually ramp up in difficulty with a handful of variables that dramatically change how each playthrough will go. Should you die, you’ll be sent back to headquarters to start a brand-new run with only a handful of upgrades you’ve managed to accrue outside of your runs. While the demo doesn’t let you go too far in terms of progression, you do get a brief tutorial and a few missions to play to get a feel for things. A typical run here will see you taking on a handful of planets in a row, harvesting a meat core from each one, and then facing a gargantuan boss at the end.
What does a typical planet look like? It’s fairly straightforward. You’re given a semi-straight path to the meat core that’s lined with aggressive fauna for you to harvest, with both primary and secondary directives giving you some extra stuff to do along the way. Sometimes you’ll have to rescue some Rangus Meats employees, sometimes you’ll have to destroy some infrastructure that’ll prevent a successful extraction. You might even get some opportunities to just harvest additional meat for your own benefit. The number of directives you successfully accomplish on a single planet will tie into a grade for your performance when all is said and done.
Getting these directives done demands bloodshed, though. You have two dedicated firearms that you can swap out prior to embarking on a mission, a melee attack, and a handful of abilities that are all tied to the current meat you have equipped. You have three meat slots — one for your legs, one for your torso, and one for your head — and you can freely swap between different meats whenever you find some in the world. On top of your own health bar, you also have to manage the health of your meat as well, as losing a piece of meat will revert it to its standard equivalent.
Managing your meat is easily the biggest appeal of SWAPMEAT. Every piece you find has its own upsides and downsides, and you’ll be trading these around every few minutes at the latest. Need to exchange some firepower for additional movement speed? Do you need a speedy dash instead of the ability to roll around on wheels? Do you need to drop that bulky torso for something a bit slimmer? It almost reminded me of how Armored Core handled customizable mechs. You’ll be making these decisions all the time, especially as your character grows stronger.
Your character levels up as you defeat enemies and accomplish directives, and every time you do, you can give yourself one of three random buffs to miscellaneous stats to make yourself stronger. Additional weapon damage and health are staples, sure, but you can even add specific effects to your different meats that can form some pretty powerful combinations. Knowing that you can lay down land mines or shoot giant laser beams with different elemental effects adds another layer of strategy that, thankfully, works independently of the meat you can collect. I genuinely love that — the build you want to pursue for your character isn’t tied down by stuff you need to find during your missions, but it can certainly help.
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What I liked most, though, was that swapping meat was downright necessary for progression at points. Some gaps in the planet you’re exploring can’t be crossed without a dash you get from a pair of insect legs. Some directives demand a specific piece of head meat to plug holes with, and the one boss I faced off against was even weak to the very same meat. I really did feel free to experiment and really engage with the different kinds of meat I could find, and it was pretty liberating to come to that realization as I kept playing. It wasn’t too difficult, but I did feel the pressure building up as I kept playing.
Should You Play SWAPMEAT?
Full transparency here: I was a little upset when the demo for SWAPMEAT ended. I really enjoyed the balance of juggling different body parts around while incorporating them into my growing character, and the fact that they all came from the very same enemies I was hunting — with those parts being more often than not specifically tied to certain kinds of foes — really tingled the synapses in my brain. The fact that everything was so goofy and over-the-top, without really diving too deep into ultraviolence, only added to the fun here.
Overall, I’m really happy that I gave SWAPMEAT a shot. Despite my own apprehensions with roguelikes or roguelites or whatever you may call them, I was legitimately surprised by how swiftly I was swept into completing the entire demo, even being able to make a fire-driven build that emphasized doing damage over time above all else. It was fun to, literally, put different pieces together and figure out what worked best with what I was going for. What’s best, though, is that it really does feel fully realized already. There’s a solid foundation here, and once the game finally debuts, I can’t wait to see how they’ll improve upon what already works.
SWAPMEAT will officially enter Early Access on Steam on October 21, 2025.
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