Games
The climbing game Peak – built almost entirely in a month during a developers’ retreat – has become a viral sensation in the midst of industry gloom. By Jackson Ryan.
Peak’s success shows a path to the summit of gaming
The second-highest peak on Earth belongs to K2, the “mountain of mountains”. Everest may be taller, but K2 is the ultimate collector of souls. When its ice armour sloughs off, the remains of expeditioners it held close plummet to be engulfed by the glaciers at its feet.
American mountaineer George Bell almost counted among the lost. In 1953, high upon K2, he slipped and fell, tangling with four other members of his party as he slid towards oblivion. The axe and stable shoulders of a fellow expeditioner were the only things that ensured the group didn’t tumble off the mountain. On Bell’s return to base camp, he proclaimed of K2: “It’s a savage mountain that tries to kill you.”
Peak, a survival video game released in June from independent developers Landfall Games and Aggro Crab, contains its own savage mountain. It looms at the centre of the game’s enigmatic island, threatening, calling. It, too, is a mountain that tries to kill you. It often succeeds, to humorous ends.
I was confronted by its monstrous shadow and predilection for death as my wibbly wobbly, bubble-headed Boy Scout first looked up from the game’s starting location. Every session of Peak starts with you and up to three friends catching a flight and crash-landing on Peak’s unnamed island. The mountain calls and so you begin your ascent to the eponymous location.
The only premise underpinning Peak – climbing – is animated by two crucial elements: your energy level, in the form of a stamina bar that dictates how long you can scale a rockface without losing your grip, and the proximity chat, a common element of online multiplayer games that allows you to hear only the players in-game who are close by.
The stamina system takes cues from systems in games such as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild or Jusant and tweaks them slightly by layering a survival element over the top. It’s a clever adjustment that adds a layer of strategising: when your stomach is empty, your stamina bar is reduced, limiting how far you can climb. Poisoned by an exploding fungus? Slipped off a ledge and cracked a bone? You’ll see stamina drop off too. Managing the deficits you accumulate as you progress is an enjoyable balancing act that never strays into tedious micromanagement.
Peak is not concerned with the burden of story. Mike Chapman, creative director behind multiplayer pirate simulator Sea of Thieves, once told me these types of co-operative multiplayer games should be considered “happy accident machines”. They’re a blank canvas on which players write their own stories.
More often than not, Peak becomes a hilarious accident machine. The slapstick bent and floppy physics that characterise Peak’s world and avatars modify that canvas for storytelling: it becomes an open mic night. While Peak is chiefly concerned with moving upward, the falling provides the game with its most memorable moments.
Exhibit A: in one playthrough with three friends, about halfway through our ascent, the upward path came to a full stop. To progress, we’d need to “dyno” – leaping from a flat ledge across an abyss and onto a vertical cliff face jutting downwards like a ragged tooth. There was trepidation from our group until one of us just jumped with a triumphant shout. They missed the cliff and plummeted.
Their voice faded from the proximity chat as their body ragdolled out of sight. Panicked shouts down the line of “Are you alive?” ensued. A minute later, a sound crackled through the comms: an out-of-tune bugle. It was the same bugle our trekking partner had been carrying for the past hour. Then their voice, quietly, but growing louder: “Guys? I think I can see you again.” Cue celebration, an outpouring of joy.
These moments are common in a typical Peak session. One ingenious mechanic feels built purely to highlight them: the lunge. Right before your stamina is depleted, you can thrust yourself forward with a last-gasp burst of energy. During a lunge, time slows ever so slightly. The slow motion is devious, inspiring hope – yes, you can make that ledge – and then, often, despair – no, you will not make it.
Fortunately, other bubble-headed avatars can help, stretching a hand out, face straining and teeth gritted, to catch you as you climb. This too is devious. If the distance is too far, your friend will watch as your face turns to anguish as you begin falling. I can see in my mind’s eye the pain etched on the face of a falling friend, their flailing arms, the echoing scream as they crash, sausage-limbs smacking against rock.
Naturally, Peak has a ceiling. Once you conquer a mountain, you know the way up. In Peak, an entirely new mountain emerges from its code every 24 hours: its holds, crags, ridges and valleys have shifted. Locations of resources and camps have moved too. It’s like climbing K2 on a Monday, Everest on a Tuesday.
There is a limit to how often you might want to return, however. The pastels that paint Peak’s world at low altitude allude, at first, to a whimsical sojourn. As you climb higher, the beach gives way to harsher biomes: first a tropical jungle, alps and finally a caldera. At these elevations the sense of accomplishment grows, but the world feels less expansive. Standing on a ledge and looking to the horizon, there’s an emptiness. No world stares back.
In its first month, Peak sold more than five million copies, propelled by the inherent TikTok-ability of its comedy accident generator. Typically this style of multiplayer game seems to burn brightly before giving way to the next viral sensation. Once you reach the top, the only way is down.
Whether or not it can maintain its momentum, Peak arrives at a curious and unpredictable time for the industry. In early June, Summer Game Fest, the yearly celebration/marketing exercise, unleashed its typical torrent of trailers and showcased upcoming games, big budget blockbusters with dreams of summiting the sales charts.
At the end of June, Microsoft announced it would be laying off 9000 staff, including many from its Xbox division, which handles games. It cancelled major projects based on powerhouse IP, writing off millions of dollars it had poured into them over several years. It shuttered studios that it had tapped to lead its gaming future.
That Peak dropped in the middle of this whiplash feels like an unintended act of protest. The game was built in a month during a game developer retreat in South Korea and released after some polishing. It costs less than two cups of coffee. As major publishers search for maximum return on investment, attempting to manufacture hits rather than taking leaps of faith, the phenomenon of this small, scrappy game feels like the happiest of accidents. And its success shows there is more than one way to the summit.
Peak is available on Steam.
This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on July 26, 2025 as "Peaky blinder".
For almost a decade, The Saturday Paper has published Australia’s leading writers and thinkers. We have pursued stories that are ignored elsewhere, covering them with sensitivity and depth. We have done this on refugee policy, on government integrity, on robo-debt, on aged care, on climate change, on the pandemic.
All our journalism is fiercely independent. It relies on the support of readers. By subscribing to The Saturday Paper, you are ensuring that we can continue to produce essential, issue-defining coverage, to dig out stories that take time, to doggedly hold to account politicians and the political class.
There are very few titles that have the freedom and the space to produce journalism like this. In a country with a concentration of media ownership unlike anything else in the world, it is vitally important. Your subscription helps make it possible.
Subscriber exclusive
Send this article to a friend for free.
Share this subscriber exclusive article with a friend or family member using share credits.
