Overview: the Run Eggstraction chicken provides the classic action of Aardman Slapstick to the consoles

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Of all the franchises that could enter the kind of stealth action, Chicken Run is not one that I would have strongly put all this on my list, but with regard to the Aardman studios, you cannot blame their ambition, as I learned when I was able to look around the seat of Aardman in Bristol, in the United Kingdom and try the game.

The story makes directly from the chicken chicken suite in 2023, with our heroes freeing chickens from around the world, and he perfectly meets the humor of the films, thanks to the writing team being mainly made of the same people. Aardman does not do this either by half-measures, because they made real models of the original characters introduced in this game, just as they would during the production of a film. This allowed the animation team to clearly see how these characters should move in the style of stop-motion of Aardman, so none of this charm is lost when it is translated into a video game.

The same goes for the gameplay that it is designed, which is divided into two distinct phases. First of all, you need to infiltrate the location to find the chickens, where the slowest stealth side of the game lives. You play in a downward perspective, distracting enemies, avoiding the traps, configuring your own traps and ideally opening the way to your exfiltration once you have reached your goal.

The stealth gameplay is not exactly at the solid Metal Gear level, but it reaches a very light tone which corresponds to the IP with which it works. This is a game on hitchhiking chickens, not on the tactical spy action. It can suffer a little from being too easy, but I had enough entertainment in the Slapstick way that enemies closed in my traps from which I don’t care. It is difficult to be crazy when an evil girl scout takes me, only to be thrown on the map thanks to my hidden trampoline.

This is where most of the appeal of this game resides, because it flows into this classic charm Aardman which makes their films and shows such an explosion, because you create frantic action sequences which have the impression of being completely out of their films, and which is never clearer than in the second phase of the gameplay, the exfiltration.

Here, stealth is always technically an option, but it is much more likely that all hell is unleashed when you corral your horde of chickens at the exit of the level. Once you have released them, they will automatically follow a path to the exit, which you must then make obstacles, enemies and traps, or find a way to transport them to another path. This is where the game becomes much more chaotic and fun, because you have to work quickly to deal with the imminent fate to which the horde walks, as if they were lemmings but somehow less observers.

Of course, you can simply spend more time in planning the infiltration phase to come and set up your output strategy, but not only is less fun, the game actively discourages it, because your note at the end of the level is partly based on speed and doing everything that is supposed to be much slower. It’s a simple design, but it’s a great idea that pushes you to chaos, where the game shines the most brilliant.

Run chicken: Eggstraction is defined for the release on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X / S and Nintendo Switch in October 2025.