FixForce: The Fun Starts When Everything Goes Wrong

Dana Thompson, Marketing & Communications Director, Surgent Studios

If we know one thing, it’s this: heads are gonna fly.

In FixForce, the new co-op extraction platformer from Surgent Studios, you and up to five friends are robot repairmen trying to make quota in a post-post-apocalyptic world. Machines need fixing, the clock is always ticking, and no repair job goes exactly to plan.

What a Round of FixForce is Like

Over the course of development, we’ve learned that people enjoy the disasters more than the shifts where everything’s smooth sailing.

Picture this: your team spends several minutes carefully building the perfect bridge, but then someone notices the support on one end isn’t quite right.

One pallet later, the entire thing collapses, and suddenly everyone’s a head.

When we first experimented with detachable heads in FixForce, they were intended more or less as spectator mode. Then we noticed that everyone was having a ridiculous amount of fun trash talking each other from their disembodied heads. From there, we added movement as heads (you can scoot, jump, and swim), and basically made it so that you can still play even after you’ve “died.” It all really clicked when we started allowing players to revive each other by snapping heads back onto bodies, effectively making death just another way of playing.

Let’s say everyone on your team died when the bridge collapsed. Your options are to zip around on the surface of the water as disembodied heads, explore a few heads-only zones that you can’t access with a body, or push your bodies back to shore so the guilty party can put you back together. It’s your choice and, it must be said, revenge is also entirely up to you.

Another element we knew we wanted to play with early on is, of course, proximity chat. We spent a while just allowing everyone to talk freely to one another, no matter how far away on the map they were. However, in testing, we quickly discovered the sheer joy of hearing a friend’s Doppler Effect shriek of horror as they fell from a height above you. You can hear other players shouting distantly via proximity chat, “I’ve found a toaster!” To cut down on frustration when you’re too far away to talk but still need to convey info, we gave each Fixer a laser pointer built into their fingers. Now, players who get separated from the group can still help pull off last-second rescues and escapes while keeping the fun and humour that distance creates.

One of the biggest lessons we learned during development is that failure is only frustrating if it stops the fun. In FixForce, losing your body isn’t the end of your run, and a collapsed bridge isn’t the end of your shift. Every disaster is another opportunity for your team to solve a problem together, and the sheer creativity we’ve seen in those recoveries has resulted in some of our favourite moments ever in the game.

How the FixForce of Yesterday Became the Fixfoce of Today

During development, one of the more surprising discoveries was that making platforming easier actually created more chaos. When players trusted their movement, they started experimenting with riskier and more creative structures to get where they needed to go. When one person built a DNA-style double helix to access a particularly inaccessible machine, we knew we were onto something good.

We also got serious about making sure that you know exactly what you’re doing and how to do it before you drop into your first shift. While some players like to take their time to learn on the fly, we found that most just wanted to get down to business immediately. And we respect that. Now, the lobby is better equipped for practice so you can get the basics under your fingers (and maybe shoot a few hoops once you’re really good) before you head out for the real thing.

These and tons of other little tweaks and adjustments make FixForce the wacky yet creative experience it is today. We at Surgent are so excited to see the shenanigans you get up to, the monstrosities you build (we’ve seen more than one giant robot built out of headless robot bodies), and the explosions you dodge as you dive into the world of FixForce.

At the end of the day, every team finds its own way of creating chaos. Some build ambitious bridges that last all of ten seconds. Others somehow turn piles of junk and discarded robot bodies into towering monuments to bad ideas. Still others blow each other up with impunity. However you play, we can’t wait to see the disasters you create (and how you fix them).

FixForce is available now on XBOX Series X|S and XBOX on PC. It’s an XBOX Play Anywhere title and available day one with XBOX Game Pass.

FixForce

Surgent Studios

☆☆☆☆☆ 127

★★★★★

$7.99 $6.39

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PC Game Pass

Xbox Game Pass

Leap, climb, and launch your friends in this chaotic co-op extraction platformer for up to 6 players! Use your drill-wrench to build your way across a vibrant post-apocalyptic world, find replacement parts, and fix broken machines. BUILD WITH FRIENDS As FixForce bots, you and up to 5 friends will build towers and paths out of scrap parts, using the structures to climb all over the worksite. Rescue each other when things get hairy, and remember: how high or far you go is limited only by how much scrap you can find. FIND + FIX In each round, you and your team will be dropped near machines in desperate need of repair. Once you’ve found them, use your drill-wrench to scour the site for the perfect replacement parts to get them working again so you can clock out on time. You might even find a few extra odd jobs around to line your pockets… WORKPLACE HAZARDS No job is the same, but they’re all teeming with hazards and violent rogue robots. Keep your eyes peeled so you can protect yourself, your friends, and your precious towers and bridges from their destructive wrath while you finish the job. BUT DON’T LOSE YOUR HEAD FixForce means reliability, and high-risk assignments are your bread and butter. If you take a tumble, slip into the water, or find yourself on the wrong side of a rogue bot, your friends can simply recover your head and snap it onto another body. Good as new! PERKS OF THE JOB The work is relentless, but so is your resolve! Every successful fix lines your bank account, letting you snag new tools to maximise efficiency and tackle even the toughest of challenges in exchange for a few unorthodox updates to your uniform. Wield the drill-wrench: Use your built-in power tool to fix machines, build towers and bridges to get around, retrieve your friends’ fallen heads, and launch items around.