They step out from the claymation shadows with all the slapstick charm you’d expect: Chicken Run: Eggstraction places the film-series’ familiar personalities into a family-friendly stealth romp that leans hard on Aardman’s comic timing and character work. The plot is straightforward – a rescue-and-escape setup that picks up the tone of the recent film – and it mostly serves as a thin stage for short, self-contained infiltration missions rather than a twisting narrative. The writing’s warmth and the recognizable voices do the heavy lifting in terms of personality, which means players who know the franchise will get more from the story beats than newcomers might.
Mechanically the game wears its intentions on its sleeve: it is a forgiving stealth title built for accessibility, with hiding spots, disguises and a generous leniency that keeps the stress level low. They can pick a squad before each mission, swapping Molly, Rocky, Frizzle and others to combine passive perks and active skills, and the way those abilities slot together gives the brief missions a mild tactical layer. That said, the systems rarely deepen into something more than charming variety – limited skill uses, predictable AI behaviour and an economy of simple gadgets keep things breezy but also occasionally repetitive.
Control-wise the PS5 build mostly does what it needs to: button prompts are clear, traversal feels intuitive and the game welcomes co-op drop-in. However, the presentation of camera and spatial awareness sometimes fights escapes; awkward camera angles and a tendency for the view to not line up with a tight corridor moment can make a tense extraction feel clunkier than it ought to. Co-op, while touted as chaotic fun, often complicates puzzles and pathing rather than improving them – two players can manufacture laughter and mayhem, but they can also manufacture confusion, particularly on smaller levels.
Where Eggstraction really scores is in its audiovisual fidelity to the Aardman aesthetic. The game captures that squishy, lovingly detailed animation style and layers it with a voice cast and sound design that sell every pratfall and gadget whirr; the cutscene work and on-level character animation are the clearest expression of the property’s strengths. Those production values make the simpler gameplay moments sing, and they are the principal reason franchise fans will feel at home. Still, visual polish can only do so much for mechanical rough edges: while the world looks delightful, mission architecture and occasional performance hitches under heavier scenes sometimes undercut some of the audiovisual joy.
Replay incentives are modest but serviceable: collectibles, stars and unlockable chickens offer reasons to revisit levels, and chasing three-star clears introduces a satisfying checklist for completionists – the contrast between the easygoing story route and the more exacting “master the level” objective is where the game finds extra mileage. They also include a Story Mode for younger or less experienced players that softens difficulty and streamlines some mechanics, which reinforces the sense that this is aimed primarily at families and younger gamers rather than stealth purists. For players chasing a richer, longer stealth experience, Eggstraction can feel thin; for parents and kids hunting laughter, it’s a tidy, bite-sized adventure.
Taken together, the game is a serviceable and affectionate adaptation: it doesn’t radically reinvent its inspirations, but it translates franchise charm into playable levels with more hits than misses. They achieve the most when the animation and voice work carry scenes, when gadget use produces a silly, emergent moment, or when the co-op duo accidentally invents a new way to cause a guard to trip over a line of rubber ducks. The downside is that those highs are occasionally punctured by control and camera niggles, a lack of deeper mechanical variety and co-op design that can, at times, make teamwork feel like controlled chaos rather than coordinated fun.
Players will find the clearest joy here if they come for the characters and the sight gags: Eggstraction is at its best when it looks and sounds like Aardman come to life, and that alone will be enough to win over many families and fans. For players seeking a tightly tuned stealth challenge or a long, mechanically dense campaign the game will likely under deliver, but for those who want a warm, accessible experience with a handful of clever set pieces and plenty of personality, it’s a cracking good time.
Score: 7.6/10
Press Play Media 