The Gunk | XB/PC | 16th Dec 2021 | From the creators of the SteamWorld series

Buffalo wrote:Any reviews? Just watched the gameplay trailer and I’m still none the wiser about what it actually is.

The Gunk is a fun little platforming adventure full of malicious messes that are plenty satisfying to clean up. The small twists each new area puts on its fairly simple mechanics never drastically shake up its formula of vacuuming the landscape and then hopping to the next location, but an enticing story and a beautiful sense of style keep the clean-up process consistently entertaining throughout its relatively brief campaign.

Once in a while, a game shows up that leaves lasting memories. The Gunk is such a game. There’s so much memorable about it! The atmosphere, lush visuals, great sound and fun relaxing gameplay combined with fantastic story-telling. If someone asks me the question, what is your game of the year for 2021? My answer would be The Gunk.

As the journey shifts and becomes a bit darker, there's a real flash of steel at the core of it all. If you've played the SteamWorld games, you'd probably expect this, but it's still a delight to see a game like this built with such craft and obvious humanity. I started The Gunk worrying about how one of the great 2D design teams would cope with three dimensions. The truth is they cope so effortlessly that I just spent the next four or five hours gloriously lost in what they had built.

The Gunk is a fun to play story based adventure platformer with puzzle elements. The voice acting is very good with performances that really expressed the emotion of the lead characters. It has an unusual graphical style that works well with the soothing music and chilled out difficulty of the puzzles. An interesting world has been created here by Thunderful Games and it is well worth checking out on day one via Xbox Game Pass.

I must admit though, after seven hours I had certainly had enough of hoovering up gunk and was very glad to have cleansed the planet of it.

The Gunk is good rather than great, then, but given it's on Game Pass you'd be silly to pass it up. Maybe it's just the time of year, but watching each region unfurl in a bubble of light and colour, not knowing what it's going to look like until the last minute, feels very much like pulling back the windows of an Advent Calendar, with each de-gunking revealing yet another jaw-dropping treat for the senses. It's Christmas comfort food for lazy afternoons on the sofa, and at just under five hours, it can be done and dusted in just a couple of sessions, too. Very good vibes indeed.

Following The Gunk's release on Xbox Game Pass in December of 2021 as part of Thunderful's strong ongoing partnership with Xbox, Thunderful are pleased to report that the title's launch has been a big success, engaging hundreds of thousands of players.

The game's success among players has been mirrored in a positive critical reception, with Eurogamer describing the game as "a treat" and IGN praising it for its "vibrant alien terrain and the absolutely fantastic soundtrack that makes wandering those areas a beautifully meditative exercise".

On the back of the game's strong performance on Xbox Game Pass, the game will be receiving a new photo mode. With the addition of this new mode, players will be given the tools to take and edit stunning shots of The Gunk, allowing the community to share images from the game online via this much-requested feature.

Thunderful is also pleased to announce that The Gunk will be released on Steam and other PC platforms in Spring 2022. The release will include the new photo mode and the additional languages that will be added to the Xbox version of the game.