Filthy Animals comes from the same lineage as other slapstick physics multiplayer games like Gang Beasts from 2014 and Sumotori Dreams from back in the mid-2000s. Its main contemporary is Party Animals, which released around the same time in 2023. What sets Filthy Animals apart, though, is how you're not tasked with beating up your friends here. Instead, you want to work together like a group of rubber legged drunks to pull off robberies and similar heists.

You play as a mutated animal that gained opposable thumbs, bipedal movement, and greater size and intelligence thanks to a weird criminal madman with a Brooklyn accent named Tony. I picked a crocodile. According to Tony, my former owner got tired of me after I went from being small and cute to big enough to be a burden and flushed me down the toilet. Somehow, Tony found and mutated me in his sewer laboratory to become one of his henchmen. Tony has a chip on his shoulder and dislikes other humans, so he pushes this kind of solidarity where we're all "filthy animals" and unwanted by society.

I'm on board for this premise. Defy the crappy humans who flushed me down a toilet. Since a newly mutated animal has trouble maneuvering their new body, that's the excuse for why all the controls and physics are intentionally weird and difficult. The point is for you and your friends to trip over each other, break stuff, and create chaos while trying to pull off bigger and bigger robberies. You can pick up almost anything in the environment and throw it, there are tacos and other consumables that build up a super meter so you can turn into an even more chaotic engine of destruction for a while, and goofy costumes and weapons can be obtained as you go along.

There's not very much to the actual game, though. You just break stuff and pick up any money that pops out until you're satisfied and ready to escape. Everything else is largely optional, outside of pushing buttons, picking up keys, or using a specific tool like a fire axe to break down a door. The enemy AI is really stupid and easily incapacitated by just about anything you do. It's amusing to watch my crocodile flop around like a half-inflated balloon, but actually trying to pick up and use items is frustrating since the controls are intentionally difficult and annoying. You really need to be playing with a group of friends where none of you care about actually progressing to get the most out of Filthy Animals.

Since the main appeal is tripping over and generally being nuisances to each other while causing chaos, the objective-based game structure feels a bit at odds with the natural aimless fun this kind of physics gameplay encourages. If you were rewarded just as much for not doing the mission well (or at all) as you were for goofing around and being stupid, this might be good. But since you're scored mostly on pulling the heists off, I feel that something like Gang Beasts or Party Animals, which act more like competitive minigames where you battle your friends in silly ways to be the last animal standing, suits the systems here better.