Smash and grab in this uniquely destructible heist game

Developer/publisher Tuxedo Labs

Format PC

Origin Sweden

Release TBA

Remember when you were young, playing videogames for the first time, and you still assumed everything was possible? Before you accepted the limitations, learned the language that discerns between interactive object and mere set dressing. It’s a necessary step - after all, these things are made by people, and it’s impractical to expect them to recreate the real world wholesale for every new game - but in some ways it’s also a loss of innocence, a closing off of possibilities.

Playing Teardown is like returning to those prelapsarian days. Every inch of its levels can be destroyed, using an arsenal that includes guns and explosives but also planks, spray paint and a fire extinguisher. We encounter a door that won’t open - and, on instinct, apply our shotgun to the general vicinity of the lock. A grey chunk tumbles out, and the door swings open. We strike a wall with our sledgehammer, and the plaster chips away, exposing the brickwork beneath. A bomb carves a rough-edged hole that’s big enough to crawl through; three more, and the entire building collapses in on itself.