Moving Out: Movers in Paradise PC Review

February 24, 2021

Pack your bags, we’re moving out of Packmore and moving in to a tropical paradise in the first expansion for Team17 and SMG Studios’ frantic strategy game since it launched in April 2020. 23 new paradise-inspired levels (split across the main story and arcade levels), four new characters, one buried treasure and a whole bunch of toasters await your F.A.R.T. (Furniture Arrangement Relocation Technician) moving expertise, so let’s take a look at what’s new and what’s improved in Moving Out: Movers in Paradise.

Read Rocket Chainsaw’s full review of the base Moving Out game

Moving Out: Movers in Paradise can be accessed immediately no matter how far through the base game you are via a raft in the bottom right corner of the Packmore map. Whisking away to the tropical island, a new tutorial awaits which prepares you for some of the fresh gameplay mechanics you’ll come across in this DLC. Movers in Paradise is filled with unique environments that will challenge your planning skills as you navigate rivers and streams, blowholes, and ancient ruins to locate the hidden treasure and help the poor paradise-dwellers move out.

Moving Out Movers In Paradise

Level designs play a large role in keeping you interested in games like this, and while other games like Overcooked and to an extent Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout tend to get a bit over-the-top, Moving Out: Movers in Paradise tends to stick to the themes of the tropical island with ancient ruins and water-play playing a large role in the latter half of the expansion. Our most memorable story mission has to be one where a dozen goats chase you through a destructible maze, though the many new objects that you can pick up (some of which react to movement) make strategising more important than ever.

One of the coolest new objects which is used across multiple levels is a fire extinguisher which doubles as a jetpack once it activates. We found the unpredictable nature of it to be hilarious as we flew around some of the levels, though they weren’t too hard to get into the truck. Some of the typical common objects from the base game make a return appearance like couches, suitcases and boxes while plenty of new themed objects like giant gemstones keep the game feeling fresh. Expect to find lots of movable objects throughout the story missions such as wooden bridges and rotating switches. The Moving in Paradise levels are a lot more interactive and involve more puzzle solving than what we came across in the base game.

Moving Out Movers In Paradise

While the game’s difficulty can prove to be quite challenging at times, Assist Mode is still available, allowing novice and younger players to have fun with the game’s mechanics in a less difficult environment. Assist Mode allows you to adjust or turn off the time limit, make objects disappear once placed in the truck, get rid of certain objects that might be in your way, and even allow you to skip levels that you may find too difficult or not fun (though we think each level in Moving Out: Movers in Paradise is lots of fun!).

If you played the base game, then you’ll appreciate that each story mission has three challenges which are revealed once you complete the mission for the first time. If you’re lucky enough to complete the challenge on your first attempt then you’re simply given the medal for it, but if not then you’ll find yourself replaying the missions to complete them. These can range from straight-forward challenges like staying out of the water to more cryptic ones like packing a random object in the truck or smashing every pot in the level. Arcade missions are back, providing players with ten quickfire challenges where you’ll race against the clock in a simulated environment. Players must complete the various aforementioned challenges in the story missions to unlock these arcade missions though, which means they’ll probably be some of the last things that you do in the game.

Moving Out Movers In Paradise

When we reviewed the base Moving Out game, we did so on the Nintendo Switch and found that the graphics felt about right for the handheld console, but shifting over to the Windows PC platform, it quickly became noticeable that the graphics in Moving Out: Movers in Paradise are not great. It’s still a fun arcade game with free-flowing physics and animations that get you involved, but for a game released last year we tend to expect more options to pump up the graphics quality on PC. While you can change the resolution to above Full HD (we reviewed it in 1440p), the only other option for graphics settings is a slider with the choices of, Your PC is slow, Low ☹, Not perfect, and Perfect, with no real indication as to how this will affect the quality of the visuals and framerate.

Moving Out: Movers in Paradise adds just enough to the game to whet your appetite for more moving madness. While the story missions are over within a couple of hours, many of them have challenges and secrets that will have you coming back for more. Moving Out is a great game to load up when your friends ask if you have any cool couch co-op games, and the simplicity of picking an item up and carrying it to a truck means even your least experienced friend can quickly pick up the concept. It’s a shame the game still suffers from the major flaw of not being playable online, as the world has changed a fair bit since it was originally developed and launched and we think Moving Out would be a lot more popular if players could join a lobby and play with random people around the world. It looks like Team17 and SMG Studios aren’t done with Moving Out just yet either, so we’re excited to see what they come up with next for all you F.A.R.T.s.

Rocket Chainsaw reviewed Moving Out: Movers in Paradise on Windows PC via Steam with review code provided by the publisher. It is also available on Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and PlayStation 4. For more information, head to the official website.

Positives:

- Lots of new levels
- Fresh gameplay mechanics
- Couch-moving couch co-op madness!

Negatives:

- Graphics are looking a bit tired
- Still no online play
- Some of the challenges are a bit dry.

Overall Score: