The physics-based vehicle destruction game I've waited two years for just hit 1.0 with a full campaign inspired by 1997's Blast Corps

I'm a simple man. You put a physics-based vehicle destruction game in front of me and I'm likely to gobble it up. Such was my reaction to Instruments of Destruction when it came to early access back in 2022, but I held back my hunger for destruction, instead opting to wait for its beautiful demolition tech to gain some structure.

That day has arrived: Instruments of Destruction, from one-person studio Radiangames, hit 1.0 today after two years in the oven, and the work shows. New to 1.0 is a full 50+ mission campaign that asks you to tactically destroy, avoid, or gingerly toss structures in 100+ prebuilt vehicles. So far I've been in the seat of a simple bulldozer, a rolly ball with jump and smash buttons, a tractor that shoots explosive cannonballs, and a truck with front-mounted saw blades and a platform that punts entire buildings into the air. Levels are less than five minutes each with bonus objectives, and completing each one unlocks a challenge version for repeat playthroughs. It's such a joy that I had to tear myself away after blazing through the tutorial world this morning.

There's a granularity to IoD's destruction that immediately makes my brain happy. The rubble's not as busy or dense as something like Teardown, but its pared-down debris serves its vehicle focus well. You'll never get fully stuck in a pile of crap, which is what you want in a driving game that sometimes includes a timer. I love what full-throttling forward with a six-wheeled monstrosity can do to an office building in IoD—concrete pillars obliterate into smaller bricks, windows panels fall fall out of their sockets before shattering and, most impressively, battered structures that lose supports will realistically fall of their own volition.

Speaking of, it won't surprise you to learn that before Radiangames founder Luke Schneider was making his own destruction game, he lent his talents to the now-defunct Volition as lead technical/multiplayer designer on Red Faction: Guerilla (among