The first Goat Simulator was released in 2014 and became a hit thanks to the wacky gameplay that allowed content creators to make videos. There were more explosions, ragdoll physics, and hidden secrets than most games that came before it, so it became a huge indie hit with PC gamers. The game had a certain chaotic charm, even if it was hard to control at times, and made objectives difficult.
For everything that the first game had going for it, it was also needlessly complicated and unhelpful in telling the player what they could do. Outside of a few objectives that showed the basic controls in the game, developer Coffee Stain Studios left much of the game to be discovered by players. If they were unable to find a certain secret, that was on them and the internet to fill them in.
There was an overall lack of direction, which made Goat Simulator a great sandbox game. But it meant more players were missing out on the content that would have encouraged players to keep searching through it. Fortunately, it seems that Coffee Stain Studios learned from this and applied it to the sequel.
If Goat Simulator was a tech demo, then Goat Simulator 3 is the fully realized project. Everything has either been improved or reworked to make the game an experience that can be better enjoyed by everyone. There’s a new world that’s teeming with references and begging for the player to cause mayhem in any way they see fit.
That being said, the bones of the original game are still there, making it feel like a rightful successor to the first game. While it’s not perfect and falls short in similar ways, Goat Simulator 3 is one of the biggest upgrades when it comes to game sequels we’ve seen in a while.
A world that’s yours to destroy and explore, in that order
At its core, the gameplay largely remains the same. You start as Pilgor, the goat with a love of chaos and destroying everything in her path. From the second the intro ends, players are let loose in an open world with no restrictions other than revealing the map with Goat Towers that need to be “synchronized” like the various high vantage points in Assassin’s Creed.
But as soon as you unlock a section of the map, all the non-hidden quests can be seen immediately. This directly leads the player to their next adventure, whether it be fixing old farming equipment or stealing a power source for a windmill. Either way, this helps the player immediately find something to do in the world—and there’s plenty to do.
Not everything is readily available on the map. There are several different types of collectibles that players will need to find naturally. These include the golden goat statue Trinkets, Ramps, gear, and the Lost Tapes. For those who want to find everything in the game, there are still many secrets and hidden areas that players will need to find for themselves.
After going through an area a few times, it’s still likely that there will be areas or characters that you had previously overlooked. In some places, these small references are packed so tightly together that you may destroy them before you even have a chance to take in the detail. Thankfully, the world mostly resets when you log out, so you can come back and view it again.
This is fun and makes running through the world often feel more engaging because you’re never quite sure what you’re going to see next. For every marked quest or objective on your map, there are a handful of areas around it that the game is encouraging you to look for. Because of this, there are hours and hours of fun to be had exploring this unique world in Goat Simulator 3.
A lot of cool features, plus some frustrating ones
Part of the fun is unlocking new gear, whether it be finding it in the world or getting it by completing missions. Either way, there’s usually something exciting about seeing the aura of the gear when you enter a new area because it means you’ll either look cooler or have some new tool that you can use to cause chaos.
This is arguably the best set of collectibles in the game because it ranges from giving Pilgor a cool new hat to allowing the player to take on the form of a pig, a rhino, a shark on a skateboard, and more. Each of these new pieces of gear looks great and seems to work well on most of the extra character models outside the goat.
There’s also a unique progression system that wasn’t there in the previous game. This gives players an incentive to keep progressing through the game’s many quests and mysteries. Every time that a player reaches the next tier of their Illuminati ranking, their home castle gets upgraded. Each of these upgrades provides the player with something new, even if they aren’t always sure what that is.
The controls in Goat Simulator 3 are easy to get used to whether you’re playing on a keyboard or controller, which is a huge improvement over the original game. But these controls can become a little crowded, especially when you’re using two pieces of gear that are triggered by the same button. Because the game doesn’t differentiate between them, you will have to switch outfits depending on functionality.
That said, not everything in the world works perfectly. The AI can sometimes be incredibly stupid, driving into random obstacles or gas tanks for no apparent reason. While this might be intended, it can be disorienting when everything goes to chaos while you’re trying to complete a mission. To be fair, the game does a good job of recovering in those moments.
It’s also easy to go flying across the map thanks to certain gear and explosions, which almost feels intended. Goat Simulator 3 makes fast travel fairly easy and the map isn’t the largest, but it can still lead to a fair amount of frustration when it happens multiple times in a row.
Goat Simulator 3 is an evolution of everything that players loved about the first game while also doing a lot of new stuff. There are seemingly endless secrets to find around the map, providing days worth of fun or more for completionists. While it suffers from wonky AI and the occasional movement bug, it does a lot to make up for these rough moments.
