After 8 years, this bizarre Lego-meets-GTA RP destruction sandbox is now technically one of 2023's highest-rated releases

After nearly eight years in development, an underground vehicle destruction sandbox called Brick Rigs has completed its long journey to launch, and with tens of thousands of positive reviews it's technically one of the best-rated Steam games of 2023.

Brick Rigs is effectively a Lego game in all but name. You build things out of modular bricks, drop them into an open-ended map, and play around with them. The game features robust physics simulations that let you build loads of moving vehicles up to aerodynamic flying machines like jets and helicopters, and you can blast them apart in impressive fashion thanks to full destruction physics.

To give you a sense of how long Brick Rigs has been around, it was a part of Steam Greenlight before Valve shut that service down. With some time in preliminary development, the game officially went into Early Access in 2016, and in a recent Steam blog developer Fluppisoft said that "after almost 8 years of development, the game is finally in a state where I feel comfortable taking this step."

Brick Rigs left Early Access on July 14, and years' worth of positive user reviews mean that it instantly became one of the top-rated releases of 2023, according to the charts at Steam 250. It's the 30th-best Steam game of 2023, and given the sheer volume of nifty indies released on the platform so far this year, that's impressive. It's all the more impressive given that Fluppisoft is actually just the business name for Lukas Rustemeyer - a German dev who created Brick Rigs solo.

While all the building and physics stuff is cool - especially given the game's Steam Workshop support and the hundreds of thousands of creations available for download - it's not the only reason for Brick Rigs' success. The game also features multiplayer, letting you set up servers for friends and strangers alike with whatever rules you want.

Those multiplayer servers include a host of GTA Online-style RP options, and if you've heard of Brick Rigs prior to today it's likely due to a crew of YouTubers using the game to power their kid-friendly content. Camodo Gaming's videos on Brick Rigs have racked up millions upon millions of views over the years, and the popularity of those videos has helped to shape the game's community.

In other words, there are a lot of children playing Brick Rigs. That fact in itself is fine, but it's something of a sticking point in the game's community. You can browse the Steam reviews if you want the nitty-gritty, but broadly there's a sentiment that the game's multitudinous RP servers are poorly moderated and full of six-year-olds at best. But that might not be an issue if you're just looking for the next Garry's Mod to play while you screw around with your friends on Steam.

If you're looking for more things to build, check out the best crafting games out there.