// PC GAMER — GAMING
'Overcooked broke you apart and Stage Fright is there to put you back together'
Developers of the stressful cooking game series talk to PC Gamer about their more 'positive' co-op adventure.
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What: A 2-player co-op puzzle adventureWhen: Early 2027Who: The developer of Overcooked and publisher of No Man's SkyHow: Steam, Nintendo SwitchWhere: Official website
I introduced Overcooked to two of my friends one day back in 2016. One day being the key phrase here. The Overcooked games are on our list of the best co-op games, but the series has a reputation for ruining relationships—in China it's apparently known as "The Divorce Kitchen". I don't recall actually fighting with my friends, but the tension was thick enough that we quickly went back to playing Jackbox instead.
That makes Stage Fright, which is being published by No Man's Sky developer Hello Games, kind of an interesting pivot for Ghost Town Games. It's the next co-op adventure from the makers of Overcooked, but it's aimed at building relationships with your play partner instead of leaving you irked at them.
Here's what Stage Fright's developers have to say about the tonal shift a decade later.
"Overcooked broke you apart and Stage Fright is there to put you back together," said co-director Oliver De-Vine, when we spoke over Zoom in September.
"I think there's a sense of us trying to be constructive with co-op, and trying to be a constructive and positive force in the world," De-Vine said. "Not that there's anything negative, necessarily, about having a fun argument with your friends! But we're trying to foster community in our games. [They're] about communication between people, and less about being very good with the fidelity of a controller."
"It's exciting to us, the idea that the people who are good at our games are the ones who are good at communicating," said games designer Phil Duncan. "Certainly with Overcooked, one of the things we found with [demoing it at] conventions is that you would find a bunch of teenage boys would come and play it, and play in complete silence, and they'd fail the level horribly.
"And then you'd get two people, we had a little girl come up, and she was like eight years old, playing with her friend, and they're chatting the whole time. And they smashed through it, and they played absolutely effortlessly."