Peak - The Game That Teaches You To Help Your Friends

Have you ever wanted to climb a mountain? What about climbing a mountain with your best friends? How about climbing a mountain with your best friends while failing to survive the perilous conditions and getting chased by a skeleton scout leader? Well boy oh boy do I have the game for you!

We seem to be on a real hig of coop games this year thanks to the likes of REPO, Elden Ring Nightreign (which I am still pissed doesn't have crossplay), and my game of the year contender Split Fiction. Now we have another new kid on the block and this one is a big winner in my eyes but some of my friends have different opinions. The game I am talking about is PEAK, an extremely fun coop climbing game developed by Aggro Crab and Landfall. The game is simple you and your friends crash land at the bottom of a mountain and you all have to climb to the top to set of a flair and be rescued. Sounds simple right, especially since I finished Jusant only a few months earlier..........well it is easier said than done.

When you and your fellow survivors wake on a sandy beach you have two priorities. The first is to look around you and get as much resources as possible because you will need them. The second is to find the cuddly toy Bing Bong and protect them with your entire existance. A climb without Bing Bong is a climb not worth doing. The resource part is extremely important as you have a stamina bar that drains while sprinting, jumping and climbing which can also be greatly reduced depending on your hunger level, the weight of the items you are carrying, health, poision, sleep, cold, heat etc etc etc. The one that always seems to be the biggest issue for us is food and cold (especially in the snow area), so making sure to find apples, coconuts and other food supply is vital. You can also find other items to help increase your stamina or help you with the climb itself. When the plane crashed all the lugage got scattered up the mountain for you to discover, when you find one you can open it and items like rope or chain guns can help your asscent as well as standard rope, pitons, and drinks and food that may give you temporary buff before it causes you to crash and pass out. You also get magical items which can give massive benefits to you and make your climb a lot easier or can kill you instantly so it is always a fun gamble.

These items are great as they make you question what you really need when climbing due to only being able to carry a maximum of 7 items if you have a backpack on (only 3 without). It also affects your stamina bar depending on the weight of them, the more items you have the less stamina you have. I personally always like the chain gun and the rope gun as it has gotten me out of multiple tricky situations. However while the items are useful, it is your friends that will be the defining reason you either live or die..... normally die.

You and up to three of your best friends can go on this climbing adventure together. I have found that while it is best to play with a group of four, you can still have a lot of fun playing it in a group of three or even only two. During your climb your friends can assist you by reaching down and helping you up, you can jump on their head like a spring board for an extra boost up, or they can even carry your unconcious body to a safe area to heal them. You can also give each other items which can be a great benefit when you are unconcious from damage and someone uses a healthkit on you orrrrrrr the more realistic situation is someone sneakily using a heat chilli on you causing your character to temporarily fall unconcious from heat. Climbing with your friends really is the best part of the game as their is nothing more enetertaing than when the climb starts getting more and more difficult and you all are standing there on a dodgy ledge yelling at each other trying to figure out the best path to climb. This is often followed by one of your friends running out of stamina mid climb and falling to their death which can lead to some extremely funny moments of hearing your friend scream nooooooooo and then looking across to see them suddenly wizz past you and fall forever down the mountain. However while it is hilarious, when they fall all their items fall with them and if they have a backpack on full of stuff that really hurts.

The game also supports proximity chat meaning the further the distance between you and your friends the harder it is to hear them. The proximity chat in this game is a particular highlight for me as you hear the echos of our voice when you enter a cave or when climbing up the side of the mountain you can hear a distant whisper of your friend voice as they are far below or above. However you never want to get to far ahead of your friends because that is when the scout leader will come to find you. The scout leader is a skeleton in a boy scout outfit who will spawn and chase anyone who is too far ahead of the rest of the friend group. If he catches you he will grab your sorry ass and throw you off the edge which will 9/10 times lead to your unfortunate demise.

All of this means you really do need to rely on your friends to make it to the top. If you ignore them or leave them behind then you will be punished from it by either running out of stamina mid climb and falling off, or getting chased by the terrifying scout leader. You need to help each other and to be honest it is the best way to play the game. Helping your buddy climb onto a ledge when they are about to run out of stamina, dropping some rope down to help them climb up, or even just sitting in a capabara hot pool while stratigising the best next steps. It is the best part of this game and when you all reach the top of that level without a single death it feels great. Sadly though our expedition team of 4 may soon turn to 3 because of one reason..... the snow level.

Peak has five levels to climb up before you reach the .......well peak. The first is the shore, a sandy level which is a great place to learn to climb but if taken to lightly will punish you with a cheeky death or two. The Second is Tropics (which is my personal favourite area) where you are climbing up a jungle mountain with vines to climb on and rainfall that causes you to climb more slowly. The third is Alpine and this is where I have to talk about the problem. Alpine is fucking hard. It is a snow level where you climb but have to avoid being caught out in a snow storm every minute or so otherwise you will freeze to death. The climb itself is also difficult, everytime we seem to get stuck halfway up with no way back down. I honestly believe it is the hardest level in the game and truly challenges our climbing skill, stamina levels and tool usage. I honestly really enjoy it for this reason as it is almost like a dark souls boss waiting to be conquered. For one of my friends though it might be the reason he stops playing. Sometimes it does feel a bit unfair especially during the last attempt where we had Geysirs that would launch you if you stand on them. This was okay except some of them where glitched in the climb so we couldnt see them until it catapulted us off the cliff. I found it hilarious but my mate was pissed and I can understand why. After multiple attempts we have only ever passed Alpine once. It truly is a beast of a section but when you do reach to top of that level god does it feel great. Anyway we continue to the fourth level which is called Caldera. This is a lava level where you have to jump from one rock to the other while avoiding the laval river below. I honestly believe it is the easiest level in the game as it is more of a platformer than climb in this section. Then finally you have the Kiln which is climbing up the inside of a volcano. The last level seems impossible to do without tools and we are yet to successfully conquer this beast. It is steep with hardly any climbing points to be able to rest on and a giant lava waterfall that burns you when you get to close. It truly is the final challenge. 

Me and my friends are yet to conquer this incredibly hilarious, fun game. One day we will raise Bing Bong at the top of the mountain like Simba in Lion King. Till then though we will keep swearing, laughing, crying and screaming as we countinue our asscent to the Peak.

Long live Bing Bong