The first time I loaded into Mycopunk, while attempting to adjust my screen settings so I could multitask on my computer. This ultimately resulted in me accidentally skipping the tutorial. At the time, I couldn’t remember how to backpedal back into it, so I figured I would just hit join game, piece it together while I go. This loaded me into somebody’s game, and the first thing I saw was them running for their lives past me as a gigantic amalgamation of tendrils and kitchen appliances started blasting me in the face. They just left me there to die for them, like a very special episode of an 80s sitcom.
I did eventually figure out the controls, managing to battle back that gigantic thing, though wasting a massive amount of ammo on a shield I thought I could just power through as if this was Overwatch. This was the only time that happened, as I jumped into a friend’s game right after this. That was the first time I met the hub area, which proved to be a much-needed space with nothing going on I could actually test out all my abilities. Boy, was I playing the game wrong in my singular 5-minute experience against a massive enemy. I had no idea the character I picked could friggin glide.
This is why I don’t really read much into first impressions because all of that could have turned me off. Instead, when I was actually playing the game, I found myself enjoying it. In parts, it felt like an extraction shooter, pulling up to a large area to explore, but with a typically more centralized mission to complete. One of the first missions we took on was the task of placing these cables on the ground to connect these two circuits, all to bring down a satellite to get these two components we needed to bring back to the strangely Texan roach that we… work for? Maybe? I’m not really clear on the hierarchy.
The point being, it had this fun, centralized focus that we could complete amid all the other craziness that occurred. In this, though, the missions could be slightly confusing to figure out if you weren’t fully aware of them. There are indicators, but if you just walk off in a direction, it can require some recentering. Not with me, obviously; I am perfect, but a few points required me to try to guide my teammate back to what we were doing. This was much more pronounced with a mission that required us to shoot up a tendril while getting swarmed by enemies. There are typical objective points that pop up, but they can be inconsistent, and if you get turned around, you need to find your way back to your location.
You can hardly complain, though, as the game plays out in the pixelated and cell-shaded style that makes your environment this bizarre combination of geometric shapes and colors. Then you add on the crazy soundtrack of aggressive synth that ratchets up and down based on whether you are being murdered by the fungus infection you are running from at all times. It is an absurd feeling, but it really gets across what the game wants, emphasizing a satisfying combat loop rather than the overall aesthetic.
And that’s where the game really comes into its own. The core concept is that this fungus has been unleashed on the moon of New Atlas. You are taking the role of these robotic cleaners meant to clean this up however they can. This involves, in stark contrast to what the name implies, taking a roster of crazy stylish guns and shooting the fungus until it goes away. At one point, I ended up pretty into this one gun that fires a cylinder block out and then pulls it back. Not really sure how that helps, but it was hysterical to shoot my teammate with it as they ran around with a concrete slab stuck on them.
Enemies in Mycopunk, because of this, really don’t play how you might expect them to. Or at least not how I was expecting. The fungus serves as a binding to normal objects, with glowing weak points. The thing is, everything is so highly destructible that you need to blast your way into the tootsie roll center of a tootsie pop. How many bullets does it take? The world may never know. This can have you literally surrounded by desk fans jumping straight on you, hoping to end you like the I in Pixar.
But it is even more complex than that: most enemies will have arms that hold guns or shields in place, and you can target these to lessen the danger to you. This isn’t some one-to-one thing, though. Sometimes you shoot off a machine gun, and it just keeps shooting at you. Other times you smash up a microwave, and it stumbles over from the damage, unable to react even if it still wants to kill you. One of the more interesting switches, as stated above with those shielding foes, you need to go inside the shield to target the things that power the shield so you can shut it down. This is a risk because it makes you a much bigger target for them to kill you, but success opens up much more range for the fight.
If you do die, this leads to one of the most simplistic and yet hysterically funny features of the game. Death splits your robot frame in two and forces your allies to grab your broken pieces and bring them together. This can involve a lot of close-up scenes of your friend rushing through all the anarchy abounding. Then you revive instantaneously and are back in the fight right up until you die again because, and hear me out here, you are the weak link.
The strange thing is the fact that, while this is more of a co-op PVE with some hero and looter shooter mixed into it, there is some extraction shooter in here too. Most stages you drop into are going to have semi-open areas you can race around, even literally racing around in a vehicle. Outside of the mission, there really isn’t much to get distracted by, only a few side locations marked on the map that add very little overall. You aren’t collecting much in the way of items or guns, with the latter tied to hero progression, making several maps feel barren.
The same of this is that you can spend a large chunk of time not repeating experiences. There are a massive number of maps and missions to load into across a vast array of biomes. The more annoying part of this can be that they are sometimes confusing to navigate, with me having to ride my bike vehicle right up a wall to get to a higher area because I could not figure out a ramp. There was even an entire roguelike mode that, maybe, goes on way too long, but was very fun when dealing with hordes of enemies.
Character progression is also a fairly fun endeavor, imperfect though it might be. Leveling your robots gives you upgrades. You can also find these upgrades for guns and things like that. It uses a grid-based system, so you can use the upgrades or abilities if you can slot them in, so you are just as likely to block yourself. It can be slightly confusing, balancing minor upgrades to abilities against more weighted upgrades, but you are constantly earning them, giving the player a large amount of choice when slotting them in.
The game is also, sadly, very glitchy, which can cut down on some of the enjoyment. There was one mission I played where an enemy got stuck in a wall, and I needed to wait till the yellow glow of his weak spot was visible in order to shoot this enemy down. Unfortunately, this happened when I absolutely needed to kill all the enemies, which is not always the case. This was besides some more consistent issues with character movement or an object spasming until it gets shot up in the sky.
The worst example I have is that after one mission ended, the drop ship, which you use in the hub to travel, did not spawn correctly. Spawning up way above the area. I stepped off and instantly died, then needed to argue for twenty minutes about having my teammate start the next stage because I physically couldn’t. They did, and the game started, dragging me through, which is how that normally works, but then instantly killing me at the start of the next match as well. This was probably the least fun I had with the whole game, though, which I think is a positive.
Verdict
Mycopunk is one of those games that I am happy to report, while it wasn’t largly on my radar, it is now. It’s a fun co-op game that gets fairly intense when it wants to, but still allows you and your friends to take it all in and have a chuckle along the way. Everything about this game is zany, wacky, and most importantly, fun. It seems like there is more work to be done; I imagine most games like this land firmly in that square, but for what is there, you can expect a lot of good times along the way.
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Reviewed on PC, also available on PlayStation 5.
*A Code was provided by Devolver Digital for the purposes of this review
Developer: Pigeons At play
Publisher: Devolver Digital
Release Date: October 20, 2026
Pros
+Great selection of quirky weapons.
+Varied mission types to chose from.
+Fun combat against bizarre enemies.
+Art style and music give the game heaps of personality.
Cons
-Large stages can feel baron at times.
-There can be some moments of confusion trying to follow a task to its conclusion.
-A lot of of bugs and glitch's, some worse than others.
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Mycopunk
