Overcooked! 2

Overcooked! 2 has a reputation as one of party gaming's most reliable ways to test a friendship, and reading widely through its review history — spanning nearly the entire time since its 2018 launch — mostly confirms it deserves that reputation. What's more interesting is what keeps showing up in the minority of reviews that don't recommend it, because it isn't really about the game's design at all.

Chaos that still works

The formula is simple and endlessly effective: up to four players cook, chop, plate and deliver dishes against a punishing timer in increasingly absurd kitchens — moving platforms, kitchens split across trucks, environmental hazards actively working against you. "An incredibly fun and frantic couch co-op experience," reads one of the most-upvoted reviews, describing testing the strength of a friendship over old wired controllers — and that sentiment holds remarkably consistently across the entire review history, positive and negative alike. Even reviewers who don't recommend the game tend to open by saying they love it.

The complaint that outlasted the launch window

Here's the thread that actually explains most of this game's negative reviews, and it recurs with real consistency from 2018 through 2026: online co-op connectivity. "This is an amazing game for couch co-op... when playing online co-op with friends this game has major connection issues," reads a representative 2020 review, and reviewers keep reporting the same pattern years later — desyncs when placing or picking up items, players lagging out mid-match, hosts having a smoother experience than everyone else in the lobby. One reviewer in 2022 specifically notes checking online and finding the connectivity issue "addressed since 2018," years before their own report, and asks plainly why it still hadn't been fixed. This is a specific, technical, well-corroborated complaint rather than a vague one, and it's consistent enough across a near-decade of reviews that anyone planning to play primarily online with remote friends should go in with realistic expectations.

One infamous level

A second, more specific complaint recurs at real distance — five years apart, independently — and is worth flagging directly: level 5-6 in the campaign, which uses screen-distortion visual effects that multiple reviewers describe causing genuine motion sickness. "Level 5-6 had screen distortion effects that induced nausea/motion sickness. There's no way to skip levels," reads a 2021 review with 183 votes, one of the highest-voted negative reviews the game has received. A 2026 review, written in a much more comedic register about the same level nearly derailing a relationship over its difficulty and disorienting visuals, references the identical section. A separate, related complaint from 2025 notes that accessibility options present in the original Overcooked — like reduced camera shake — appear to be missing or reduced in the sequel, compounding the specific problem this one level creates for sensitive players.

Reading the completion data

With 54 tracked achievements, the completion curve shows healthy early engagement tapering into a smaller dedicated core. Tutorial and early-recipe milestones sit between 76% and 86%, showing most buyers get a genuine start with the core mechanics. World 1 completion at three stars drops to 57.6%, and the deepest DLC-specific challenges fall under 1%, reflecting how much of this game's long tail is reserved for players who commit to its paid expansion content specifically.

7 out of 10. Overcooked! 2 remains a genuinely excellent chaotic co-op cooking game, and the overwhelming majority of its reviewers, across nearly a decade, back that up. It's held below the top tier by two specific, well-documented issues rather than a design failure: online connectivity problems that have recurred consistently since launch, and one particular level whose visual effects have induced real motion sickness in reviewers spanning a five-year window with no option to skip past it. Play it on the couch with people in the same room, and you'll likely see exactly why this game earned its reputation in the first place.