Cruelty Squad

Worth buying? What 300 Steam reviews say.Worth buying? Here’s what 300 Steam reviews actually say.

Overwhelmingly PositiveOverwhelmingly Positive · 96%2021

$19.99

US Steam price, checked 6 h ago

The verdict

A deliberately hideous, punishing and strange immersive-sim shooter with fast movement, deep systems and sharp satire. Skip it if the visuals, audio or unexplained mechanics repel you.

Great for

Players who like weird outsider art, fast movement shooters, secrets and figuring things out without hand-holding

Main risk

The abrasive visuals, sound and opaque design may repel you before the game clicks

What players love

Unique, deliberately abrasive art style

Mentioned in ~1 in 5 positive reviews

“It looks like a Windows 95 screensaver had a stroke after peaking on industrial-grade DMT.”
Steam review · 53.4 h played ↗

“Looks unplayable but soon enough the optical sensors you call your ‘eyes’ will acclimate to the game's unearthly, visual chaos”
Steam review · 14.9 h played ↗

“For the first minutes you want to close the game out of self-preservation: the interface screams, the colors sear your eyes.”
Steam review · translated · 0.1 h played ↗

Stock market, organs and fishing side systems

Mentioned in ~1 in 7 positive reviews

“I can sell organs and use the stock market while shooting people with an lmg. Fun”
Steam review · 8.8 h played ↗

“1 hour of the main gameplay and 99 hours of catching fish and selling organs and stocks.”
Steam review · translated · 24.8 h played ↗

Deep systems, freedom and replayability

Mentioned in ~1 in 8 positive reviews

“The player is given an enormous amount of creative freedom in how they complete each level.”
Steam review · 21.6 h played ↗

“Once you get a grip on the at first arcane stock and fish markets, the game becomes much more of a sandbox”
Steam review · 13.2 h played ↗

Rewarding once it clicks, secrets and lore

Mentioned in ~1 in 9 positive reviews

“i picked up and put down this game 4 times across a couple years, never making it further than the first stage i ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ get it now.”
Steam review · 25.3 h played ↗

“this game is like sonic the hedgehog where it sucks ass until you play it for 8 hours then it really starts to click”
Steam review · 8.7 h played ↗

Satire of capitalism with a bleak, memorable world

Mentioned in ~1 in 10 positive reviews

“The most interesting and artistically unique criticism of modern society, capitalism, corporatism, hustle culture, and consumerism you will ever consume in your life.”
Steam review · 9 h played ↗

“it's actually a great satire on capitalism. And it's a lot of fun to play!”
Steam review · 8.3 h played ↗

Fast, tight movement and gunplay

Mentioned in ~1 in 15 positive reviews

“The gunplay is tight, movement is *incredibly* fast with bunny-hops, double jumps, jet boosters, etc, and there is zero hand-holding.”
Steam review · 20.3 h played ↗

“the gameplay is super tight, and when you become a speedrunning demon going for S rank and learning the maps inside out it only becomes better.”
Steam review · 101.5 h played ↗

What players complain about

Shallow, repetitive or unfun gameplay

Mentioned in ~1 in 4 negative reviews

“Once the initial impact of the visuals wears off, it becomes clear that the gameplay is shallow and quickly grows repetitive.”
Steam review · 1.1 h played ↗

“The gameplay loop is so monotonous (load into level, kill main targets, hit the exit) and the level design is terrible.”
Steam review · 12.3 h played ↗

“The gameplay doesn't develop at all. From the first level to the last you run around, go pew-pew, kill the target.”
Steam review · translated · 20.5 h played ↗

Hard-to-stomach visuals, audio and UI

Mentioned in ~1 in 4 negative reviews

“Sound design makes me want to cut my ears off -Art direction makes me want to claw my eyes out -UI/UX is so bad it makes me want to vomit”
Steam review · 0.7 h played ↗

“when I play it the visuals and the audio always give me a headache so I can't recommend it.”
Steam review · 2 h played ↗

“The game is ugly and I don't care if it's on purpose.”
Steam review · 8.1 h played ↗

Confusing, unexplained and obtuse

Mentioned in ~1 in 8 negative reviews

“theres a door in the first level that just wont open looked around the map for anything money, bullets, green orbs even blue orbs nothing i was stuck in the first level”
Steam review · 0.6 h played ↗

“The controls are incredibly unintuitive, the game explains almost nothing”
Steam review · 8.7 h played ↗

Overhyped, doesn't live up to the reputation

Mentioned in ~1 in 8 negative reviews

“I dont understand the hype around this game, I appreciate the time this devoloper put into this game but its highkey butt.”
Steam review · 1.6 h played ↗

“No idea where the 97% positive reviews come from.”
Steam review · translated · 0.2 h played ↗

Poor optimization, bugs and crashes

Mentioned in ~1 in 11 negative reviews

“Unoptimized. High performance mode doesn't work, if anything, it makes the game run even worse I've noticed.”
Steam review · 5.2 h played ↗

“game was going to 1-5 fps, when I was speaking with someone. Almost to the freezing state.”
Steam review · 0.4 h played ↗

Developer's Charlie Kirk comments

Mentioned in ~1 in 11 negative reviews

“The creator linked to a map for the game on his bluesky, where you can reenact Charlie Kirk's assassination. Absolutely sick and horrifying”
Steam review · 0.7 h played ↗

“He made a really bad move by publicly sharing a custom map that simulates the recent assassination of Charlie Kirk, which came off as offensive.”
Steam review · 23.6 h played ↗

System requirements

From the Steam store page

Steam Deck: Unsupported

Minimum

OSWindows 7

ProcessorIntel Core i7-7700HQ 2.8GHz

Memory2 GB RAM

GraphicsNvidia Geforce GTX 1050

Storage1000 MB available space

OSWindows 7

ProcessorIntel Core i7-7700HQ 2.8GHz

Memory2 GB RAM

GraphicsNvidia Geforce GTX 1050

Storage1000 MB available space

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