Overcooked! 2 is the second in Team 17 and Ghost Town Game's video game series about cooperative cooking chaos. The sequel to Overcooked!, it was released for Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on August 7th, 2018. It was also released as part of a compilation release, Overcooked! All You Can Eat, in March of 2021. It has five DLC campaigns: "Seasonal DLC" (which was released for free), "Campfire Cookout," "Night of the Hangry Hoard," "Carnival of Chaos," and "Tropical."
The Onion King has accidentally unleashed a plague of Unbread upon the kingdom, and as the best chefs in the castle it's up to you to cook enough food to stop them! The chefs must cook their way through sushi restaurants, deep mines, and wizarding schools in order to satiate the Unbread and find a way to unsummon them for good. Gameplay is similar to the first game, and involves quickly preparing dishes to fulfil orders, as well as performing kitchen maintenance like washing dishes. New to the game is the ability to throw ingredients to move them around more quickly. The DLC campaigns also introduce fire-based cooking methods that require maintenance, such as fires that need to be stoked with wood or by bellows. The game also introduces new modes of play—playing in Survival lets you play until you fail to make a dish, while Hoard mode resembles a Tower Defense game, where you must make dishes to stop the Unbread from breaking down your defenses.
This game contains the following tropes:
- Co-Op Multiplayer: Like the first game, the game can be played alone by switching between chefs, or controlling a single chef coordinating with other player in the co-op mode.
- Edible Ammunition: Raw ingredients can be flung at other chefs, onto counters or into utensils, or onto the floor or into pits, or
on top of the walls or outside in some levels since there is no ceiling. - Endless Game: Levels can be played in Survival Mode, where each dish served extends the timer.
- Evolving Title Screen: The food truck in the main menu and the music playing change to match the theme of the last played campaign or level.
- Excuse Plot: The story is kicked off by the awakening of the Unbread, but the majority of the game is just a training montage so you have the skills to cook enough to feed them into submission.
- The DLC storylines are just attempts by the Onion King to have his exile reversed by the kingdom's Culinary Council.
- Hollywood Fire: Kitchen fires don't generate much smoke, they only affect predetermined areas and they don't harm you if you get close. They do stop you from using kitchen appliances or pathways that are aflame though.
- Idle Animation: The chefs have a few, including waving and looking around.
- It Came from the Fridge: The Unbread are evil living moldy bread.
- It Was a Dark and Stormy Night: The Unbread baking ritual happens during a thunderstorm.
- Like an Old Married Couple: The DLC missions show Onion King and Kevin like this, bickering over the Onion King's failure in the Unbread incident and their subsequent banishment from the kingdom. We never get to hear Kevin's side of it, but he's clearly chiding the Onion King the whole time.
- Non-Human Undead: The Unbread which, as their name implies, are zombie bread.
- No OSHA Compliance: Kitchens in these games are often located in bizarre or even outright hazardous places like the middle of busy roads, hot-air balloons, rafts on rivers, mineshafts, rafts on rivers in mineshafts, Unbread-filled swamps, frozen lakes, alien planets, and so on. Very few have any safety features. This can result in the chefs working in said kitchens end up drowning, run over flat by incoming automobiles or falling to their dooms. The chefs do come back after a five second countdown though.
- Oh, Crap!: Kevin's immediate reaction when the Onion King unveils the Necronomnomicon. He's totally right about it too.
- Our Zombies Are Different: On top of being cursed loaves, the Unbread can be satisfied by eating normal meals rather than brains.
- Overworld Not to Scale: In the level select you travel through one of these on a bus that transforms to match the terrain. Unlike most examples of the trope there aren't any random encounters, and the details of the map are gradually revealed as you unlock levels.
- Palm Tree Panic: The first DLC is set on a tropical island, and includes tropical recipes like fruit smoothies and barbecued skewers.
- Portal Door: Present on some levels, and can be used to transport food, utensils and people.
- Post-End Game Content: Clearing a campaign unlocks a fourth star for each stage, which require an almost perfect score to obtain.
- Present Day: The prologue happens just after tea time.
- Scripted Event: Several stages feature obstructions like moving counters you need to chase or crowds that block your path. These often happen at regular time intervals.
- Secret Level: The unlockable "Kevin" levels. All of them involve making steamed buns and all need to be unlocked by meeting certain criteria in other stages, such as getting a certain score or not failing any orders.
- Symbol Swearing: One of the emotes on the chat wheel.
- This Is a Work of Fiction: Opens with a spoof disclaimer:
- Tome of Eldritch Lore: The cookbook used to summon the Unbread, the Necro-nomnom-icon.
- Training Stage: Each level can now be played in Practice mode, so you can see what you're in for.
- Underground Level: The mineshaft levels are underground, though they don't actually involve minecarts as is typical.
- Unexpected Gameplay Change: The Horde levels in the DLC change the game to play more like a Tower Defense game.
- Unishment: The DLC shows that the Onion King's punishment for summoning the Unbread is temporary exile to the various DLC locations. Locations that include a beautiful tropical island and serene woods to camp in. He's well aware of this, and is determined to have fun with it.
- Vent Physics: Some levels feature these, often placed dangerously close to ravines or other threats.
- Video Game Geography: Type 1. The stage selection menus are flat and country-shaped. Sorta.
- Video Game Setpiece: One of these happens in Stage 1-6 where your hot-air balloon crashes into a sushi bar.
- Wizarding School: Several levels in the second game take place at these. They feature magic portals that warp you around the stage.
