One thing I should say before getting into the review is that I have never played the original, as it was a pandemic release. I, like many others, was invested in my island in Animal Crossing. I feel slightly annoyed by this fact, as I would love to compare the two to see which areas Moving Out 2 has progressed in, but all I can do here is try to compare it to other similar games of the genre.
Moving Out 2 is built to be a couch or online co op game. I did play this solo as well as with my eldest son, and as with many other games of this ilk, the solo play was okay, but the real fun and magic lies within its multiplayer.
But, if you’ve had no experience with the original, you may be asking what this game is actually about. Well, as the name suggests, you work for F.A.R.T. (Furniture Arrangement Relocation Technician), based in a town called Packmore, emptying properties of their belongings and sometimes putting the belongings in their rightful place in their new house. This sounds pretty boring, but the twist is as chaotic as you’d hope it would be.
Playing this reminded me of Fall Guys in a couple of ways, from the different costumes you unlock to its ragdoll esque movement, and it’s the latter that helps to bring some of the chaos while you navigate some extremely well designed areas. You’ll be encouraged to smash windows so you can throw items straight onto the truck, use parasols or inflatables in the pool to bounce items off into the truck, and you’ll find many other ways to use the landscape to get items into the truck as quickly as you can. This is important as you are timed and have to get everything moved within a set time to successfully complete the stage.
Things start out pretty simple, and you’d be hoping that things get more interesting soon, and you’d be right as the stages do start going off in crazy directions. Soon enough, you’ll be in a candy themed world where you have to navigate chocolate rivers and breakable biscuit walls, in a medieval setting, trying to battle moving walls as you try and move a magic book, or you’ll time travel to the future, where on some stages you’ll find moving platforms or cranks to move the stage around. You’ll find yourself furnishing a house by firing TVs and sofas through windows or even trying to gather escaped farm animals. But dont be fooled into thinking all this is simple, as some of the stages will challenge you, with some getting pretty close to that pass time limit.
I had so much fun with my son during all of this, which was a relief as I was worried about stress levels or potential fallouts over the game. Unlike other similar co op games, with Overcooked being a prime example, Moving Out 2 never took us to that place of anger. It never felt frustrating to see what the other was doing, and when you needed help with large objects, it just worked. When we did fail, it wasn’t because of an individual but because of what the game was asking of us. It encouraged us to talk about different tactics for our next attempt, which was normally more successful. It was one of my most favourite gaming experiences because of this, and we just smiled throughout our playthrough.
What also helped with the enjoyment was the writing within the game. Constantly making my sixteen year old laugh through its heavily punned script, you’ll be rolling your eyes throughout its light plotline from its fart and dad jokes. This is not anegative at all, as it helped maintain the quirky, colourful and fun world you find yourself in.
Everything is not perfect, though, and there was some frustration with some objects that were placed to obstruct your work. Rakes and one way doors were the main culprits, earning a few sounds of annoyance from both of us and grew our frustration levels unnecessarily.
Each stage offers unique challenges, but these were not revealed until after you completed the stage, which was also frustrating. This actually deterred us from replaying the stage, and we found ourselves moving on to the next one instead of replaying it. If we’d known beforehand, it might of been a different story. As I mentioned earlier, playing solo really isn’t as much fun. Items are lighter than In multiplayer, but not having that other person with you really sucks the fun out of it.
We also experienced the game not saving our progress and forcing us to restart the whole game. Our replacement game saved with no issues, so I’m not sure if this was an isolated moment, but one to maybe be wary of.
Moving Out 2 is a vibrant, amusing, and often challenging game. You will laugh, you will smile, but most importantly, Moving Out 2 is just plain silly fun that will entertain you and your friends or family for hours. With its low frustration levels, fun stage designs and writing, it’s the perfect game when you have company over. The weak solo play is a shame, but it’s kind of expected from this type of game, hopefully one day a developer will crack that side of the co op game genre, though you are nicely covered by the online co op mode. But with all the other extras like arcade games, collectable outfits, and much more, you’ll be itching to play this as much as possible.
Moving Out 2
Release Date: 15th August 2023
Platforms: Steam, Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One & Xbox Series S/X
Price: £24.99