It is very, very easy to dismiss "Teardown" as just another technology demo. A simple framework of maps, tools, and missions designed to showcase developer Dennis Gustafson's amazing voxel-busting technology. But a year and a half after its Early Access debut, Teardown has not only shown off its impressive technical prowess, but also proved itself to be a bloody little heist 'em up and the most ingenious sandbox platform since Garry's Mod.

Teardown is first and foremost all about destruction. Wooden shacks, concrete walls, metal catwalks, and plaster corridors are the kind of game that responds accordingly when you hit them with a hammer, and Teardown's world, despite its blocky appearance, breaks in a wonderfully convincing way. Metal pipes bend and snap when their supports are removed, and plaster walls scrape away to expose sturdy bricks, raising a cloud of dust as they crumble.

"Teardown" would be fun enough just to tear down the context-free levels. But the genius of the game lies in how you can twist logic around this madness; Teardown's campaign takes you from a set of materials and environments to a series of destructive heists with a limited set of tools. While you can certainly wield a hammer without limit, you can't break through a brick wall or a barred window, and while blowguns, shotguns, bombs, and rocket launchers are gradually unlocked, their uses are limited.

In the early missions, you use these tools to cut a route through an empty map and speed up the course to collect valuables before the alarm timer reaches zero. It's a very simple mission, but wonderfully satisfying in that it makes you think about your own carnage, and it's not long before Teardown takes on a new twist. The fire alarm goes off, flying sparks need to be extinguished, and attack helicopters with rocket-propelled grenades appear.

Teardown was first released halfway through the campaign, and the early missions may feel a bit the same. However, as the game went through Early Access, Gustafson became more creative in the game's mission design, and the more interesting challenges backloaded into the game's second act. Suddenly, car chases, tornadoes, and killer robots are on full display, and the spectacle of Teardown's destruction engine is on full display.

See, despite being a voxel game, Teardown is an absolute marvel and may be the only compelling argument I have seen for ray tracing in games. It would not work if it did not reflect off the rain-soaked cobblestones. When a building collapses, it really collapses, exploding in volume smoke, scattered wood, and shattered glass.

As a campaign, Teardown is a fun attempt at a plunge, framed by a lighthearted story about a contractor who keeps getting hired by equally feuding businessmen. Pursuing side jobs and optional goals gives them money to upgrade and unlock new tools and an excuse to do unfinished demolition work again.

As you complete each mission, the mission hub gradually transforms from a dilapidated warehouse to a lovely family home. Of course, there's nothing to stop you from trucking through the side of your new home, but it's nice.

However, I don't know if these heists alone would have kept me coming back month after month. Instead, Teardown's true and enduring source of vitality is its modding community, which has absolutely exploded since its Early Access debut in 2020, with Steam workshops ranging from a recreation of a Counter-Strike arena to a miniaturized version of New York City to a photo dozens, if not hundreds, of maps, ranging from photographed train yards.

Sledgehammers are fun enough, but why not go on a rampage with new destruction spots such as laser rifles, minigun akimbos, and portable black holes? Portal-style test chambers activate the portal's guns. Some mods transform nasty attack helicopters into fearsome cyborg dragons that relentlessly chase you through the dingy Russian streets.

Modders have even tinkered with the fundamental breakdown; Teardown's destruction does not take into account structural stability or tension, so entire buildings are often supported by a single voxel. Various modders are trying to remedy that in various ways, including breaking objects in flight and chaining destruction to create more believable building collapses.

It reminds me of the best parts of Garry's Mod, scouring the Steam Workshop every week to see what new nonsense I can plug in. It's fun to bust stuff, and there's enough new stuff in the Workshop to bust that I'm sure I won't get bored for years to come.

The only disappointment is that Teardown has no multiplayer at all. While I can appreciate the nightmarish programming nightmare of synchronizing thousands of exploding voxels across multiple clients, it is too easy to imagine the kind of new improv games that could have sprung from Teardown's foundation.

Because the foundation is truly amazing, Teardown is not just a tech demo, but a window into a world where the game world has become more dynamic, more physical, and more fragile; it's the physics of "Half-Life 2" and "Red Faction: Guerrilla's destructible architecture, and doubled down on it instead of pursuing ever more static worlds with greater graphic fidelity.

"Teardown" is a game that gets excited about its own technology and tries to show you all the ways to break things. The game is a quiet and brilliant series of heist puzzles, with a never-ending array of new worlds to break and new tools to break. But most of all, Teardown is a truly great time."