Peak comes to us as one of the most recent success stories in a long line of games — dating all the way back to 2020 — that now goes by the messy subgenre name of Friendslop. COVID changed the way we gamed online with friends,,who found themselves having to play low budget indie games with friends that were now locked up for quarantine.
The term friendslop is supposed to imply that the game is only really good because you’re playing it with friends and enjoying it, not necessarily that the game is actually any good. Peak isn’t the only game that was prominently given this label to wear though – Lethal Company, RePo, Content Warning and Among Us are all titles that have been grouped alongside it. Peak however, doesn’t need to rely on the social aspects of its gameplay. It certainly helps, but Peak can hold up perfectly well on its own.
So, if you’ve been living under a rock for the best part of a year now, what is Peak? Well, we take control of a scout troupe that has mysteriously crash-landed on an island, and we have to scale a huge mountain with changing biomes, day/night cycles, and challenging terrain. You have to manage your carry weight and stamina, and try not to eat the wrong strange looking fruits on your way up. But things just might get desperate enough, you don’t have a choice…
Peak’s main strength is in its proximity chat based gameplay. It encourages you to get out of those discord calls and into the voice chat instead, which is all proximity based — the closer you are to your friends, the louder they’ll be, but good luck hearing them over rocky terrain and howling winds. It’s also fairly haunting to hear a friend lose their grip, panic, and fall down the mountain, watching them disappear and listening to their voice vanish from range. I mean, it’s equally as funny to see that happen, but this is a game after all. Oh, and don’t think once you’ve beaten the mountain once it’ll all be the same after that; every twenty–four hours, the layout of the mountain changes, meaning your next climb might be your last…
Even if you die, the fun isn’t over — you become a ghost that can float around and haunt your friends as they continue the climb without you. They’ll be able to hear you speak as you climb, and they even have a chance to find a rare item that can resurrect you, so make sure that no scout gets left behind! You may have noticed the sashes our characters are wearing in the pictures; those track your achievements that you earn in game as little badges, just like a real life scout troupe, which I think is just absolutely adorable. It also encourages you to want to hunt achievements, something not many games do these days.
Nearly a year has passed since Peak’s initial release and it’s showing no signs of slowing down. They’ve even had an in-game concert, similar to those held by Fortnite, hosted by popular artist bbno$! If Peak has accomplished this much in such a short time, I’m excited to see what they continue to do!
Peak is currently available on Steam, and there has been talk of bringing Peak to consoles later down the line. Pick yourself up a copy of Peak here: