While past Destroy All Humans titles in the series have had multiplayer offerings, it has never been the series’ focus or strong suit. This made the stealth release of Destroy All Humans: Clone Carnage a potentially interesting one. Did developer Black Forest Games attempt to test new ideas with the budget-priced stand-alone title, which is openly built from the 2020 remake, or is this a multiplayer experiment gone awry? Sadly, it’s an anal probe that isn’t enjoyable in the slightest as THQ Nordic didn’t include any lube.
The game makes a terrible first impression with its barebones presentation and basic menus. It gets worse because there is also no matchmaking to speak of, with the game instead relying on a less streamlined room-based system where players have to enter lobbies to get into matches. It’s already a dated approach that is even worse considering how few people are playing Clone Carnage. There are typically only one to three rooms open at any given time, so the match immediately starts when someone joins since no one is going to wait 10 more minutes to fill out a four-player lobby. Due to either hosts starting games as soon as they can or its various connection issues, players will end up staring at the “Failed to join lobby” screen more than actually playing the game, which is truly the thrill of online gaming.
Sadly, it’s not any more fun when the match actually starts. There are four different modes, each equally as anemic and poorly thought out as the next. Rampage sees players taking on a timed mission, such as killing cows, destroying tanks, or anally probing government agents (which, admittedly, does rule), but it’s just a repetitive cycle for three and a half minutes, no matter if you’re working together to reach a target score or competing for the highest ranking. Meanwhile, Armageddon is a free-for-all mode that has you doing whatever you want around the maps (all ripped from Destroy All Humans) for five and a half minutes, which at least gives players freedom and time to meaningfully attack each other. Finally, there are abduction and race modes that are equally as one-note as their names suggest. These mechanics are fine in the single-player remake, but are not deep enough to be worth repeating in a multiplayer context.
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However, getting into a match isn’t a guarantee that it will be played to completion as connection and stability issues hover around Clone Carnage like a UFO about to abduct cattle. It’s impossible to know when or how these issues will strike. The game randomly boots players from matches and can even cause the entire system to crash, both of which happened repeatedly during my time with the game. One of those crashes was so severe that it turned my entire PlayStation 5 off and booted itself back on in safe mode. Seeing if the build is stable enough to not crash your console is unfortunately the only excitement on offer here. All of these issues make this a total chore to play, so much so that the trophy for completing 50 online matches seems like a true grind despite that number not being extraordinarily high.
If there’s one positive about Clone Carnage, it’s that the local split-screen multiplayer mode works totally fine. It’s still has dull gameplay with mundane tasks and isn’t the fun, alien open-world sandbox it should be, but the frame rate is stable and that’s worth commending in a world where split-screen offerings are increasingly rare. That said, you’d be better off playing nearly any other split-screen title or hooking up a retro console, so the only praise it deserves is quite faint.
Destroy All Humans: Clone Carnage isn’t a good reason to pre-order Reprobed nor worth the budget asking price as a stand-alone package. It’s a shell of a multiplayer experience that only will appeal to those desperate for a local split-screen game to play and looking to relive the terrible tacked-on multiplayer modes that were more commonplace 15 years ago. With little fun to be had, this is one alien invasion worth sleeping through.
SCORE: 3/10
As ComingSoon’s review policy explains, a score of 3 equates to “Bad.” Due to significant issues, this game feels like a chore to take in.
