Motorslice is one of those games that looks approachable right up until the first boss caves your skull in for the 30th time. Developed by Regular Studio and published by Top Hat Studios, it's a parkour action-adventure where you play as P, a Slicer tasked with dismantling hostile autonomous machines inside a brutalist megastructure. The movement is deliberate, the parry system is buried inside your heavy attack, and almost nothing is explained outright. After testing every mechanic against the game's 8 bosses, here's what actually matters.
What is Motorslice and how does it play?
Motorslice sits somewhere between Mirror's Edge, Shadow of the Colossus, and Celeste. You parkour through a post-apocalyptic megastructure, fight construction machinery ranging from small autonomous drones to colossal dump trucks, and climb bosses apart piece by piece rather than just hacking at them from the ground. P is voiced by Kira Buckland (best known as 2B in NieR: Automata), and her companion Orbie is a malfunctioning orb drone that functions as your camera and occasionally interacts with the environment.
The game costs around $17.99 and is available on PC via Steam, PlayStation 5, and Xbox. It runs well on Steam Deck at default settings, though capping to 40fps extends battery life noticeably.
According to a full playthrough documented by Couch Soup, one reviewer finished the game in 12 hours with 548 deaths. That's not a horror story, that's the game working as intended. You die fast, restart instantly, and try again.
Deaths are tracked and displayed in-game. The checkpoint respawn is nearly instantaneous, framed narratively as P waking from a nap. The frustration ceiling stays low because of this.
How does movement work in Motorslice?
Movement is the core puzzle of this game. Get these fundamentals wrong and you'll spend most of your time falling.
Sprint, slide, and wall run
- Sprint is your default pace. The base jog is too slow for most jump distances, so treat sprinting as your normal state.
- Wall running triggers automatically when you jump toward a wall mid-air. You don't need to hold a direction into it.
- Sliding is your invincibility frame. Most saws and crushers can't be jumped over; you slide under them. This is the mechanic the game never tells you.
- Double-jump resets after a wall run, a chainsaw anchor, or hitting a pole. Chaining these together lets you cross gaps that look impossible on first sight.
Wall run resets your double jump
Chainsaw anchoring: your grappling hook
The biggest mistake new players make is treating the chainsaw purely as a weapon. According to the MOTORSLICE.org tips guide, it anchors onto orange surfaces and functions as movement. Think of it as a grappling hook with a blade attached.
- Most weak points require a jump first, then attack mid-air. Running directly at them rarely works.
- If the chainsaw stops running mid-traversal, drop and re-press the attack button to re-anchor.
- Orange surfaces are your signal. If something glows orange, you can anchor on it, parry it, or both.
Chainsaw anchoring resets your double jump just like a wall run does. Once you internalize this, long traversal chains across the megastructure open up completely.
How does combat and parrying work?
This is where most players hit a wall. There is no dedicated parry button in Motorslice.
Hold attack = charged attack = parry. That's the entire system. A held heavy attack functions as your parry, your bonus damage, and your saw deflect simultaneously. Spamming light attacks accomplishes almost nothing meaningful.
The orange glow rule applies to combat too. If an enemy's attack, limb, or projectile glows orange, a charged attack will parry it. This includes saw blades, hooks, and specific boss limbs.
Key combat interactions
- Tentacle drones: Parrying a standing tentacle drone's saw with a charged attack cleaves both of them at once. This unlocks the Crowd Control achievement.
- Orbie orbs: When orbs follow you, parry-attacking one mid-air launches it at an enemy. This unlocks the We are here for you! achievement.
- Damage model: You die in 1 to 3 hits. So do most enemies. Aggression beats caution every time.
Standing directly in front of the Dump Truck's crusher is an instant kill. Always approach from underneath or from the side.
How do you beat bosses in Motorslice?
Bosses are traversal challenges first, combat encounters second. The Shadow of the Colossus comparison is accurate: you climb them, find weak points, and slice those apart. Most bosses can be parried.
General boss approach
- Look up. Weak points are almost always above you, reached via poles, swings, or fans. The instinct to fight at ground level will get you killed.
- The Truck's wheels and the Helicopter are the most straightforward first parry opportunities, according to the MOTORSLICE.org tips guide. Practice parrying on these before tackling harder encounters.
- Most bosses are climbed, not dodged. Getting in close is usually safer than trying to keep distance.
What are the secret achievements and hidden interactions?
Motorslice has a layer of secret interactions that most players skip entirely. These are worth knowing about.
- P-oke achievement: On the main menu, press P on P's face repeatedly until she quits the game.
- Slack Off achievement: Hold right-click during an idle scene to zoom in on P, then click. She reacts.
- Selfie system: Press 1 to take a selfie. There's a full pose system accessible from that single button.
- Flashlight achievement: Shine the flashlight directly in P's eyes.
- Orbie Hater achievement: Point the camera at the floor and attack until the screen breaks. Only do this if you specifically want the achievement.
The "Slack Off" cutscenes are fully voiced by Kira Buckland and unlock most of these secret achievements. Skipping them means missing a significant chunk of the game's personality.
What about collectible orbs?
There are hundreds of collectible orbs scattered across the megastructure. Based on the Couch Soup playthrough, one reviewer collected 159 and estimated they missed a substantial number more. Half their deaths came from chasing collectibles.
Here's the practical advice: you only need 30 orbs, including a chain of 5, to unlock any achievement tied to them. The game has a Chapter Select for retrieving missed ones, so there's no reason to fight for every orb on your first run. Attempt a difficult orb a couple of times, then move on.
Orbs must be deposited in specific areas, sometimes before a timer runs out. If you're going for a near-completionist run, pace yourself. The frustration compounds fast when you're chasing the last few in hazardous positions.
Five mistakes that will cost you the most time
These are the patterns that consistently slow new players down, drawn from community testing and playthroughs documented across multiple sources:
- Using the chainsaw only as a weapon. It's your primary traversal tool. Anchor on every orange surface you see.
- Trying to outrun bosses. You climb them. Get close.
- Spamming light attacks. The charged attack does everything important.
- Approaching the Dump Truck head-on. The crusher one-shots you. Come from underneath.
- Skipping the idle cutscenes. They're voiced, they're funny, and they're where most secret achievements live.
Motorslice sits comfortably alongside other adventure games that reward patience with movement systems over raw combat skill. The more you understand how the chainsaw and parkour chain together, the more the whole game opens up. For more guides covering every chapter and boss, check out the full Motorslice strategy guides collection on GAMES.GG.