Night Shippers Review (PC)

Night Shippers provides a hypothetical scenario for you to ponder—a bizarre idea that would normally surface on social media every once in awhile in the form of a multi-choice question with a Backrooms-like illustration. What if, say, you were offered a job as a courier in the ashen depths of the underworld? If the salary was absurdly low, and the clients weren’t mere mortals, but ghosts, monsters and almighty deities, would you snatch the opportunity to fill up your satchel and bite the hand? In any ordinary situation, you wouldn’t. But here, in Night Shippers, the option to abandon the dossier and find an alternate depot to deliver from is unavailable. The only option that you can pursue, really, is to wade and ride through hell and high water and survive long enough to see the break of a new dawn. If you fail to hit that target, then you have a simple, albeit harrowing consequence: an eternity in purgatory. No pressure there, then.

If you haven’t guessed it yet, Night Shippers is a co-op courier-based game in which up to four players are given the rather ominous task of delivering food to the peculiar entities of the underworld during the night. The caveat here is that, while the act of completing said deliveries is, at least to some extent, a rather straightforward process that doesn’t require much more than a steady hand and a firm sense of urgency, the underworld is a brutal and unsavory place where you not only have clients to visit in a timely fashion, but a borough that’s full of traps and shifting weather conditions that require constant attention. And that’s essentially what Night Shippers is: a courier sim that forces you to make daring deliveries in a world where everything can kill you. The clincher is that you also have to complete all your deliveries before sunrise. But, we’ll talk more about that shortly.

The good news here is that, despite laying it on a little thick, Night Shippers doesn’t aim to be a fully-fledged horror sim. Instead, it opts for the middle ground, between a comical co-op experience that’s as equally ridiculous as it is entertaining, and a procedurally generated obstacle course that can cough up copious amounts of original curveballs and deep dives without losing that all-important edge. It might not be on the same level as Death Stranding or other big-budget courier RPGs, but it is a game that makes the best of what it has in its satchel, and that’s all that matters here. It isn’t a perfect concept, but it works, even with all of its minor imperfections.

The idea is self-explanatory: enter the underbelly of the afterlife as a food courier, and make deliveries before the final grains in the hourglass grace the bottom. As a team, you have to evade monsters, traps, and other unfavorable conditions to successfully fulfill your objectives and escape before the morning. Again, it’s a simple concept that doesn’t leave a lot to the imagination. It’s the procedurally constructed world, as well as the vague rogue-like elements that make it a little more interesting and, thankfully, in no way reminiscent of a bog-standard A-to-B delivery sim.

While the world itself isn’t exactly teeming with great set pieces or extravagant details, Night Shippers does make a solid effort at conjuring fresh obstacles for you to overcome with each passing descent. To that effect, you have a significant amount to consider before you enter each shift. For example, you might need to find a shortcut that allows you to bypass a certain weather event, or you might need to figure out a foolhardy plan that allows you and your teammates to make as many deliveries as possible before sunrise. And that’s where the rogue-like aspects come into focus. See, with each shift that you complete, you earn an in-game currency that allows you to unlock more gear, which you can then use to boost your chances of surviving tougher deliveries and obstacles, and so on and so forth. It’s a simple hook, but it does add a solid layer of replay value to the experience.

Of course, I can’t bring myself to say that Night Shippers is a classically good-looking game, because it clearly lacks the technical polish and intricate details of a top-shelf multiplayer experience. That being said, it is a pantomime that brings a lot of fun to the table, with its inclusion of various traps, strategies and other procedurally generated curveballs there to ensure that players always have something to sink their teeth into, be it a fresh gear upgrade to elevate their stats or a new world to keep them second guessing their each and every move. Clearly, it isn’t a perfect game, but it does what it says on the tin, and that alone counts for a lot.

Verdict

Night Shippers daringly descends into the ominous quarters of the underworld with the intent to deliver a heart-throbbing, albeit somewhat humorous co-op experience that can keep you on your toes for hours. With a generously packed upgrade system with a wide selection of gear and courier-stapled perks, as well as a procedurally generated underbelly that caters to an endless range of traps and challenges, the game has just enough replay value to keep you going — and that speaks volumes, truly. It might not be the prettiest co-op game on the block, but with a hearty bouquet of obstacles and tasks to shovel through, it is one that ought to give you a good laugh. Maybe that’s worth the price of admission alone.

For the record, Night Shippers isn’t a mechanically sound game, nor is it the cleanest, for that matter. Yet, it is one that you should consider inserting into your library of comical multiplayer experiences, if not for its procedural elements, then for its high-tail horrors and team-based shenanigans. Again, don’t expect a perfect game here. Do, however, expect a silly co-op affair that can and oftentimes will result in a chuckle.