“Destruction AllStars” for the PlayStation 5 is a multiplayer combat-driving mashup game, originally intended to be a launch title, and is now available as of February 2021. 

Players take control of one character out of a collection of unique characters and enter an arena, find a vehicle and then attempt to destroy opponents’ vehicles. If your car sustains too much damage, you can hop out and run around the map, avoiding other players and even forcing them out of their vehicles on your way to find any one of the new cars that are spawned periodically throughout the arena. 

You can also summon either a unique character ability or a unique car that can provide you with a wide range of advantages. It’s an interesting twist to have players in combat both in and out of vehicles at the same time on the same field, and it provides an unexpected energy that is easy to pick up on, but one that easily becomes stale. The controls are tight and well-tuned, but the driving mechanics are almost too precise. Rushing forward or dashing sideways are your main attacks when in the cars, and they are ever so slightly too easy to activate with a small flick of the right joystick. Fortunately, there are rechargeable abilities that replenish fairly quickly, but it’s no fun to dash forward when you don’t mean to and then be unable to do so when you want to. It’s just different enough from the standard controls that one can find across multiple different video games, that those who tend to switch between games frequently (like myself) might need a brief adjustment period every time they start up “AllStars.” Otherwise, the controls are quite intuitive, and the game is easy to pick up for a few rounds. 

For Sony, “Destruction AllStars” is a no-brainer: a simple game with a simple gameplay loop and flashy action that showcases the system’s capabilities, a roster of quirky, representative characters and an in-game store for players to acquire emotes and cosmetics. It’s a tried-and-true formula for modern multiplayer games. For the player, it’s not long before you realize there’s not much to do. It achieves what it set out to do, and nothing more.