Mates and Crates is a third-person action shooter that blends crate collection, shape-based crafting, and team-based combat on PC. Crates drop across the map with rarity levels shown by their glow, ranging from common to legendary. Players gather these crates, transport them to a personal 3x3 crafting pad, and arrange them into specific shapes to produce weapons, vehicles, squadmates, or special items. The shape determines the outcome while the rarity influences quality, yielding results such as basic melee tools or powerful options like miniguns, rocket launchers, and explosive devices.
Gameplay
The core loop centers on scavenging crates while managing threats from opposing teams. Common finds might yield a baseball bat or frying pan, whereas rarer ones unlock advanced firearms, grenades including smoke, flashbang, sticky, and molotov types, or even riot shields. Ragdoll physics add chaotic movement when impacts occur. Vehicles play a key role, with options like buggies equipped with mounted guns, humvees, trucks suited for hauling crates, and tanks. Squadmates can board these vehicles and fire from their positions. AI-controlled squadmates follow commands to collect crates, defend bases, or engage enemies. A character editor allows customization, including unusual options like a shark hat. Controls support both keyboard and mouse or gamepad input. Maps feature five biomes including forest, desert, snow, swamp, and city, with variations for day, sunset, or night lighting, plus dynamic weather such as rain, snowfall, fog, sandstorms, and wind that affects grenade trajectories.
Game Modes
Six distinct modes support up to four teams, with options for online play alongside friends, bots to fill rosters, or solo matches against AI opponents. HQ Assault requires teams to destroy the enemy headquarters using explosives while safeguarding their own. Team Deathmatch awards victory to the side with the most kills. Five Minutes to Gear Up provides a brief crafting truce followed by a no-respawn elimination round until one team remains. Steal the Crate tasks players with retrieving an enemy golden crate and returning it to base. Zones mode focuses on capturing and holding key map areas. Hide and Seek lets participants disguise as bushes or crates to evade detection. Six stackable modifiers further alter sessions, such as increased knockback, low gravity, constant crate rain, universal C4 access, accelerated crafting, and doubled health pools. Twenty or more crafting recipes exist, with several secret combinations available for experimentation.
Multiplayer and Progression
Matches emphasize coordination between human players and AI squadmates under direct command. Teams can mix friends and bots or compete entirely against artificial intelligence. The system supports both cooperative and competitive setups within the same session. Progression ties directly to crate rarity and placement efficiency, rewarding effective arrangements with stronger equipment and vehicles. Environmental factors like wind and weather introduce variables that influence strategy during vehicle maneuvers or grenade throws. The indie action focus keeps sessions fast-paced, with physics-driven interactions creating unpredictable outcomes in every engagement.
Is It Worth Playing?
Mates and Crates targets players who enjoy multiplayer shooters combined with light crafting and vehicle combat elements. The verified features include six modes, shape-driven crafting with over twenty recipes, thirty or more weapons and explosives, four vehicles, AI squad support, and five biomes with weather variations. Since the game remains unreleased with no player reviews or ratings available, suitability depends on interest in team-based action where scavenging and quick crafting decisions matter. Those drawn to physics-heavy combat, customizable loadouts from crate arrangements, and flexible team sizes up to four will find the described systems align with that preference. The inclusion of bots and single-player options against AI broadens accessibility beyond pure online matches.