SWAPMEAT Prepares for Early Access With Final Meat Lab 7 Test and we talked to One More Game

 

"Our bosses are like Destiny 2 style raid bosses that scale from one to four players, which is hard to design for, but we finally hit the right balance."

By GeeksVsGeeks

Independent developer One More Game has officially confirmed that SWAPMEAT, the co-op roguelite third-person shooter where you rip and swap body parts from aliens to steal their abilities, will enter Early Access in October 2025. But before then, the studio is inviting players into one last wild ride. 

From September 4 through September 9, Meat Lab 7 will serve as the final global playtest, giving the community one last chance to shape the game before it launches. And this one comes with a bonus: the exclusive Meat Scientist Cosmetic Set, reserved for anyone who has participated in a playtest prior to Early Access. If you want to call yourself a true Rangus Meats employee, now is the time.

I can see all

revisiting the meat!

When we caught up with One More Game’s Jamie Stormbreaker at PAX West, the enthusiasm was immediate. The build being demoed at the Seattle show was, in his words, “really similar to what people can play on September 4.” He pointed out that compared to the PAX East build earlier this year, the version on display featured a much more complete UI, fixes for major usability issues, and tuning to make bosses clearer and more engaging. 

As Jamie put it, the multi-stage alien monstrosities now feel more like carefully crafted encounters rather than inscrutable puzzles. “Our bosses are like Destiny 2 style raid bosses that are scalable from one to four players, which is hard to design for, but we’ve got two in the game right now across two solar systems. Each solar system has three planets, so that’s six planets, and we revamped the flow of events on all of them.” 

The changes don’t stop there. Meat Lab 7 introduces a brand new grid-based meta-progression system that replaces the old weapon upgrade path, giving players the ability to customize their weapons before each run using unlockable parts. Jamie explained that this came directly from community feedback: “We had this ancient weapon upgrade system for a long time, and players told us it wasn’t working. So we scrapped it and focused on the new one. It’s grid-based, you configure your weapon ahead of a run, and it gives you more choice.”

"If you’ve got a friend who always carries, death shouldn’t ruin the fun. It should give you agency."

You've got a friend in me - Multiplayer is a meaty experience

One of the most important changes going into Meat Lab 7 affects multiplayer. Previous playtests showed that sitting idle after dying was a problem, especially in a game built around co-op. “Nobody wants to just sit there watching their friend play,” Jamie admitted. 

The solution was to redesign how respawns work. If you run out of respawn tokens and still have a teammate alive, you can hold a button to bring the hunters — the ever-present cosmic enforcers acting as the game’s clock — closer to the planet. Doing so makes the run harder but allows you to rejoin the action. “The important bit is that the agency is on the person that died,” Jamie said. “I want players to feel like there’s never a bad time to play with your friends. If you can carry your team, great. If it makes things harder for you, you don’t care, because you’re the one carrying.” 

That emphasis on agency ties back to One More Game’s broader design philosophy. Jamie stressed that SWAPMEAT’s multiplayer had to be welcoming and flexible. It supports one to four players, peer-to-peer connections, and most importantly, drop in and drop out. The difficulty scales instantly when someone leaves, and story progression carries over for everyone. “There’s a narrative in the game, but you can complete it in a non-linear fashion,” Jamie explained. “If your friend is on the third act, you can join them, and when you go back to your own game, you’ll have the same progress unlocked. It’s not just advancing their game.” He compared the system to Diablo II, noting that it was a major breakthrough in designing roguelike progression that doesn’t punish co-op play.

"Sometimes players show us the fun we didn’t know we had already built."

Build on fun, do not restrict it. 

Some of the most fascinating moments from the PAX West conversation weren’t about deliberate design at all, but about happy accidents. Spider legs, for instance, were originally meant to be a subpar body part. Yet players quickly discovered that chaining their dash ability allowed for wild bursts of speed and traversal. Instead of nerfing it, the team embraced it. “I knew it existed and I knew my teammates knew, but no one said anything because it was just fun,” Jamie laughed. “So we turned it into a feature and made it tunable.” 

Another discovery involved combining the wasp torso, which resets jump counts, with the spider legs. The result was essentially infinite flight. “On the PAX East show floor, I knew it was possible but I didn’t know if anyone would find it. And someone did — they flew out of the world box and came up to me saying, I’m the guy that broke it. And I said, I’m the guy that fixed it. We didn’t remove it, because it was obviously fun.” The team instead built invisible planes to contain players while still allowing them to feel like they were breaking the rules. This approach — of treating every body part as a toy and waiting to see what players invent with them — has become core to SWAPMEAT’s identity.

"The name One More Game comes from that Friday night feeling of just wanting one more run with your friends."

When asked about the guiding vision for the studio, Jamie shared a simple but powerful philosophy. Respecting players’ time is everything. “I don’t have kids, but I have a company, and I don’t have time either anymore,” he said with a grin. That’s why the game avoids level grinding or barriers that prevent friends from playing together. “If your friend carries you through the whole thing, who cares? Did you have fun? That’s what matters.” The idea of “moments of heroism” was baked into the design from the start, ensuring players can always feel useful and enjoy their time together regardless of skill. This is also why the game’s campaign is approachable, with optional difficulty modifiers for those who want a bigger challenge.

Try it yourself and help shape the game

As SWAPMEAT heads into its final playtest and prepares for Early Access, it’s clear that One More Game’s development process has been shaped as much by its community as by its developers. From UI overhauls to systemic reworks, from accidental flying to deliberate design, every Meat Lab has been both a proving ground and a creative playground. With Meat Lab 7, players get one last chance to influence the future of this bizarre co-op shooter before it hits Early Access in October. As Jamie summed it up, “In SWAPMEAT every body part is just another toy in the toy box. The fun comes from seeing how players put them together. That’s the heart of the game.”

SWAPMEAT Meat Lab 7 runs September 4–9, with Early Access set for October 2025. Sign up at playswapmeat.com or wishlist the game on Steam.

To give players a clear picture of what to expect in Meat Lab 7, One More Game has outlined a host of updates and improvements. Meta-progression has been fully reworked with 27 new pieces to unlock and tune, making loadouts more customizable than ever. Multiplayer respawns now include new mechanics like Respawn Beacons, where fallen players can return at safer locations once objectives are completed, while hunters have been rebalanced to be more manageable until they become enraged. 

Exclusive skin for Meat testers

Quality-of-life improvements are also in place, including fully rebindable controls, polished environments in Solar System 2, and better localization support for Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese players. Every participant in Meat Lab 7 will see these updates firsthand, and those who have taken part in any playtest will receive the exclusive Meat Scientist Cosmetic Set as a thank-you for their service to Rangus Meats. Finally, for anyone who wants to see the developers themselves dive into the meat-grinding chaos, One More Game will host a live stream on Twitch September 5 at 4 p.m. PT showcasing the newest content.

We had a great conversation with Jamie about Swapmeat.