The Onion Kingdom is in trouble once again, so you and your chef friends must team up to successfully run a serious of increasingly zany kitchens and fulfill food needs across the land. Overcooked 2's fiery adventures include everything from serving it up atop a hot air balloon, to ridiculous sushi conveyor belts, to kitchens with molten lava and teleport pads. You'll need to work on your communication skills with your co-chefs to avoid burning everything in sight...but sometimes, that's part of the fun, too!
With Overcooked 2 out now on the Nintendo Switch, here's everything you need to get started:
What is Overcooked 2?
Overcooked 2 is the sequel to Overcooked, and iterates heavily upon what was established in the original. Up to four players work together in a kitchen to create dishes following recipes for orders that appear over time. Each dish must undergo a number of steps to complete, such as frying meat, chopping vegetables, or cooking rice before combining the ingredients together. Various obstacles, stage hazards, and the sheer mayhem of trying to coordinate multiple people at once will make it more difficult to successfully complete enough dishes in the time limit.
How do you play?
Each player selects the chef of their choice (it's all cosmetic), and then the group is deposited into a kitchen. You'll see the orders appear at the top of the screen along with the listed ingredients beneath. You want to complete as many orders as possible within the time limit while keeping orders from expiring, which you can see as the color on the order starts to turn red, indicating the customer is getting impatient.
Items will need to be prepared correctly, combined on a plate together, and then sent out via the conveyer belt on each stage to be considered "done." Meat must be cooked in a frying pan, vegetables must be chopped, and rice or soup ingredients must be cooked on the stove. You'll receive instructions for each recipe before you begin a stage, so don't worry about memorizing how to prepare ingredients beforehand.
Note that you have a limited number of pots and pans, so you'll have to ensure one item is cooked before you can use a pan for another. You also have limited plates, and those will need to be washed at the dishwashing station once they come back dirty before they can be used again. Also, note that you'll have to keep an eye on anything on the stove to make sure it doesn't overcook. If it does, you may start a fire that you have to put out with an extinguisher.
Do you need four people to play?
You can play Overcooked 2 entirely solo if you like, but it's far more fun with a group of friends. Two, three, or four players can play together with a single Joy-Con controller apiece. Fortunately, Overcooked 2 has online multiplayer, so if you can't get your friends together in your living room, try playing long distance! Do note that it's a lot easier with vocal communication, so it's recommended that you use some sort of chat program to speak to one another while you play.
What's new in the sequel?
Overcooked 2 is very similar to the original and includes a campaign with couch and online multiplayer, a Versus Mode, and an Arcade Mode. The main difference is the game's iteration on the kitchens from the original. New themes, new recipes, and new hazards make their appearance, upping the challenge level compared to Overcooked and inducing far more kitchen mayhem. There are also new chefs to choose from, including an octopus!
The other major change is the addition of a "throw" mechanic. In Overcooked, you could toss ingredients on the ground and others could pick them up, but Overcooked 2 refines the technique a bit. You'll need to get good at ingredient tossing to successfully finish every level and still make good tips.
Recipe for success
Don't panic, but Overcooked is a challenging game regardless of how many people you play with. The game will scale its order frequency based on the number of players, and the difficulty increases as you progress. Skills you master in one area will be thrown for massive loops in another, so you're always on your toes.
If you're struggling just to finish levels, here are a few tips and tricks to help you progress in Overcooked 2:
- Communicate, communicate, communicate. Take a moment at the start of each level as you look over the recipe to assign jobs, especially early on when it's easier to delegate. Have one person be in charge of coordinating each main step of the food process.
- Sometimes assigning jobs won't be enough, as stage hazards will force you to split up or change jobs. When this happens, remember the first rule: Communicate. If you can't chop lettuce anymore, pick up the slack from someone else who can.
- Tackle yellow, orange, and red recipes before starting on new, green ones. But note that you'll need to have more than one order going at once to succeed, so make sure someone is always aware of where a particular order is in the process.
- Repeat levels! It's fine! Overcooked 2 won't penalize you for trying again and again to succeed, and the practice will make you better at future levels. Sometimes just knowing what hazards to expect, along with where and when they appear, will help you better prepare the second round.
- Beware that sometimes what you're cooking could change mid-round!
- If you're in a position of downtime, try to overprepare. Chop extra veggies, cook extra rice, make sure all the pots and pans are always being used in a helpful way. Try not to overdo it and accidentally take up valuable pot or counter space that needs to go to a different ingredient, but anticipating needs will help you in the long run.
- Do the dishes! Don't forget!
- Throwing ingredients doesn't just get them across impassable gaps. It can also help speed up the kitchen considerably if you need to get an item from point A to B very quickly but need to stay in the spot you're currently in.
How much does it cost?
Overcooked 2 launches on August 7, 2018, and will cost $40.
Any questions?
Have any questions to help you get started in the kitchen? Let me know in the comments!
