A Perfect Mix Of Teamwork And Trolling Makes Peak The Multiplayer Game Of The Moment

Who would have thought a game about a plane crash would be so charming? Like Yellowjackets without the cannibalism or Hatchet without the hatchet, one game tearing up the Steam charts is all about wilderness survival in a way that’s hilarious rather than harrowing.

Peak was announced and released within the same week in June, and it’s become the multiplayer game of choice for hordes of fans since then. Even with games like Elden Ring: Nightreign vying for attention, Peak gained 2 million players in just nine days, and its popularity hasn’t waned since. That’s because Peak, largely made in a single month-long sprint, hits the perfect balance of chaos and strategy making it satisfying to replay over and over as you try to climb your way to the top of a mountain with the help of your friends — or in spite of it.

Peak falls neatly into a category of games designed exclusively for online sessions with friends, like Repo and Content Warning. They tend to demand cooperation but offer lots of ways to screw your friends over and rely on proximity-based voice chat to encourage sticking together. You could call them hangout games, or if you’re feeling uncharitable, the term “friendslop” has emerged among people with a pathological need to feel superior. As Nick Kaman, one of Peak’s developers recently asked Inverse, “Isn't it a great thing to goof around with your friends?”

In Peak, the answer is a definitive yes. The central mechanics are simple. Hold a button to grab onto the mountainside and climb until your stamina runs out, hoping there’s solid ground under your feet by then. Rather than asking you to master tricky controls, Peak wants you to use items judiciously to increase your stamina, build bridges, and heal any wounds you get as you inevitably tumble end over end after missing a tricky jump. At the start of the game, you and up to three friends crash land on a beach on a scouting trip and are forced to sift through luggage from your crashed plane for anything that will help you get to the top of the mountain. A few consistent items (a flare, a bugle, your trusty plushie Bing Bong) are guaranteed, but otherwise, everything you find is randomized. The same is true of the mountain, which changes shape once per day, meaning you can face a wildly different challenge each time you climb.

I’ve seen that at work myself throughout the few weeks my friends and I have played Peak to the exclusion of all else. One night, I made it safely off the mountain for the first time without falling unconscious (a feat that Steam’s achievement tells me only 11 percent of players have accomplished, thank you very much). The next day, my group struggled to make it even halfway through the second of Peak’s five biomes. That can be a bit frustrating and lead to bizarre group texts like “Today’s mountain sucks, gang” and “What’s with all the thorns today?” but it also means you can never truly master Peak.

That’s especially true because you won’t be making the climb alone. While you technically can, in Peak’s solo mode, so much of the game’s fun comes from playing with friends that singleplayer seems like a different game entirely. In the intended multiplayer mode, your fellow scouts are even more of a wild card than Peak’s inherent randomness. Teamwork is key to reaching the mountaintop, whether you’re offering a hand to help a friend reach a ledge or bandaging them up after a long fall. But if your friends are feeling like little jerks, they can instead choose to sabotage you by force-feeding you poison berries (sorry to everyone I’ve done this to).

It’s been nearly a month since Peak’s release and I can’t see myself stopping any time soon. There are still plenty of merit badges to earn by accomplishing objectives like not eating any packaged food or carrying Bing Bong to the top of the mountain. Most of my group hasn’t made it to the top alive, so obviously we’ve got to fix that. But even aside from the clear goals left to finish, Peak is an ideal space to hang. It’s challenging enough that everyone needs to cooperate, but chill enough that you can still chat while doing it. The climb to the top is full of absurdity, but reaching the peak is a genuinely satisfying feat. Weeks in, I’m still discovering things to love about Peak, the most joyfully brutal multiplayer game I’ve played in a long while.

Peak is available now on PC.