I’m finding Surgent Studios, the developer of Tales of Zenzera: ZAU and Dead Take, increasingly difficult to pin down, though, not in a bad way. Those two games are a far cry from one another in both atmosphere, genre, and mechanics, and now the studio’s next game is something completely different once again: FixForce, an extraction platformer, a combination of words that might finally pin down Those Types of Games.

By Those Types of Games, I mean the likes of Lethal Company, Peak, and the many others that have followed. Extraction platformer might better apply to the latter there, but I think it’s closer, and much less annoying a term, than friendslop. Anyway, FixForce! Is a game where you and five friends find yourself in a flooded, post-apocalyptic but quite colourful city, where you must venture forth to find parts to fix various machines and gizmos.

To navigate said world, you must use things like wooden pallets, girders, and other miscellaneous items to build bridges, stairs and the like. You do so using a drill-wrench, which is basically just Half-Life’s gravity gun, albeit you can freeze things in place to make those makeshift platforms. Upon finding all the relevant parts and fixing up those machines, you can clock out and get out of there, and the cycle begins anew.

You’ll of course find plenty of risks, but you’re a robot so it’s alright if your head literally comes off; friends can carry your head or body around in such situations and put you back together, say, in the event of an evil robot blowing you up, or you get too much water in your system.

On first viewing of the trailer, I did get some light Ratchet and Clank vibes about it outside of the obvious Lethal Company and Peak influences, and all three of those are cited on the game’s Steam page funnily enough. Alongside Garry’s Mod! So I was close with the Half-Life reference.

I do wonder, and worry, about the staying power of These Types of Games, but the pseudo build-your-own-platformer quality of FixForce does have a charm to it that I think gives it just enough appeal to stand out. And it’s not too long until it has a chance to prove itself, as it’s due out in early access next month, March 12th. You can wishlist it on Steam right here.