Heave Ho 2 [REVIEW] – Swinging With Friends

I love a multiplayer experience that captures that ideal blend of cooperative teamwork and absolute chaos, and trust me, Heave Ho 2 manages it brilliantly. Following up on the success of the 2019 original, this sequel doubles down on what made the first game so hilariously memorable, ensuring you’ll have a ton of fun – all whilst lashing out with more than a few curse words along the way… you know… in a nice, friendly way… 

Check out some screenshots down below: 

If you are new to the series, the premise is wonderfully absurd: you and up to three friends play as disembodied heads with incredibly long arms, with your only goal being to navigate from the start of a level to the finish line without plummeting to your doom. Should be easy enough, right? Well, it is an entirely multiplayer experience, meaning you are forced to work together… which is exactly where the madness begins. 

The core gameplay mechanics are delightfully straightforward. You use the analogue stick to stretch your arms and the shoulder buttons to make your left or right hand grip onto surfaces, or, more likely, onto your friends. Success relies entirely on the momentum you have when making these movements, with players having to swing across massive gaps by linking hands to form a wobbly human chain, timing button releases perfectly to launch yourselves over pits and obstacles. 

“Heave Ho 2 delivers exactly what you want from a modern couch co-op experience: fun, chaos, and plenty of stupidly funny moments.” 

Naturally, releasing the wrong button at the wrong time sends your friends and yourself tumbling into the abyss, so perfect timing from every player is essential to success. Fortunately, failure is rarely frustrating thanks to instantaneous respawns, ensuring any accidental drops usually lead to laughter (and, as mentioned, some swearing here and there). It makes for a wonderfully simple physics playground that just about anyone can pick up and play, ensuring you’ll have plenty of fun from the moment you start playing. Sure, it has a learning curve, and sure, you’ll fail a LOT, but the core loop of the game is so easy to understand that it’s easy to see why it’s perfect for multiplayer play.  

To keep things fresh, Heave Ho 2 introduces eight distinctly themed worlds full of some zany visuals and clever gameplay hooks to keep players engaged from start to end. In fairness, the variety feels like a big step up from the first game, and with all sorts of different mechanics thrown in, you’ll always feel like you’re doing something different. And believe me, when something doesn’t click with someone straight away, it can make for some genuinely hilarious moments – it’s hard to be frustrated with another player when their constant mistakes are just so damn comical, though! And sure, there were a couple of levels that didn’t land quite so well, but the way that Heave Ho 2 constantly innovates upon its otherwise simple core gameplay loops still manages to be impressive. 

Check out some screenshots down below: 

Outside of simply surviving, levels also feature optional challenges, like completing time trials, rescuing tiny animals, or using an equippable camera to snap silly photos. Checking off these goals unlocks some genuinely fun rewards ranging from cosmetics to gadgets, so there’s definitely an incentive to tackle them. Again, they add a comical edge to the experience because some players will struggle with them more than others, but it kept us playing that little bit longer because each reward felt worth the effort. 

And for those times when another player has irritated you so much that you want to teach them a lesson, there’s a competitive Showdown mode. Here, you race, survive, or fight to win a series of minigames – sure, it’s nowhere near as engaging as playing cooperatively and the fun I had with it was limited, but it still felt satisfying to beat everyone and prove that you’re not the one letting the team down. Because, if you’re reading this review, it was you, Callum, no matter how much you tried to deny it.

Developer: Le Cartel Studio 
Publisher: Devolver Digital 
Platform(s): PC (Reviewed), Nintendo Switch 2, Nintendo Switch 
Website: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2802740/Heave_Ho_2/