Thank Goodness You’re Here! Review

Coal Supper, Thank Goodness You're Here!

Thank Goodness You’re Here! arrives on Xbox Series X/S consoles following its launch on PlayStation 4 & 5, Switch and Steam last year. As one of the most high-profile British developed indies of the last few years, I had heard nothing but immense praise for the comedic tale including its coveted BAFTA award for Best British Game.

Though, with little knowledge of the game’s genre and content before playing I had no idea what was really in store. Fortunately, Coal Supper’s trip to a fictional Northern English town lives up to its prestige and is one of the best games I have played this year.

This is a spoiler free review for Thank Goodness You’re Here as it launches on Xbox.

Thank Goodness You’re Here! is unashamedly Northern. If you’re outside of the UK, it may be difficult to understand the regional differences across the unplanned towns and rolling hills of England. There is a ‘North / South’ divide, though where that imaginary line sits is purely in the imagination of the person who tells you. To a ‘Southener’, anywhere north of Birmingham (central England, and where I hail from) is a ‘Northener’. To a Northener, anywhere below Manchester a Southener. It really is as daft of a conversation as it sounds.

The game is set in a fictional Northern town, Barnsworth. If I was to drop a pin on where that would likely be, it’d be here:

Peoples from ‘the North’ have stereotypes that they’re very proud of – living life cheaply, being community driven and having lived through times tougher than those in the southwest (and if you ask some, being a little backwards). Thank Goodness You’re Here!, developed by two person dev team Coal Supper in York, captures everything about being Northern in a way that could never offend a Northerner. It embraces their culture, their people, their way.

In the game we play as an unnamed salesman who is sent to Barnsworth to meet the town’s mayor. On arrival, we immediately get waylaid by the residents of the town and their traditional ways of living. Overweight pie store owner, Big Ron, drunken locksmith, Ronny and incredibly horny couples line the town’s streets ready to tell us about their issues (and non-issues…) and ask for our help.

If you have lived in Britain – particularly the North – you can relate all of the townsfolk to either someone you have know; or real people you have seen in other forms of media. The game’s comedy, much like most British humour, is often subtle and indirect.

It is a very short game that can be 100% completed in under two hours, thus being so short I don’t want to spoil any of the humour and story beats. Every laugh, every cry and every ‘Bloody Hell!!’ needs to be experienced in the way Coal Supper delivers it. The humour ranges from sexual, to bullying losers, to fully incompetent workers and in the short runtime, no gags fall flat.

Polly and Paul like to keep their curtains open…

Is Thank Goodness You’re Here! suitable for non-Brits? Though as English in humour as The Inbetweeners, this is entertainment that will make anyone who enjoys a Simon Pegg and Nick Frost film (Shaun of the Dead / Hot Fuzz), howl in places.

The gameplay here is very simple, with little more than a jump and ‘slap’ (interact) button, and that’s exactly all that we need here. Punching postboxes, slapping the arse of obese food truck owners and jumping down chimneys, the two simple actions seamlessly blend their way into this short tale. It is a linear game (though you absolutely must get sidetracked for some essential side content) which is important as it keeps you moving with the humour. Had Barnsworth been an open world, I expect I’d have frequently got lost for some time and thus forget the setup before the punchline. Like with the best comedy, timing and delivery is everything.

Bin bags. Red post boxes. Cobbled streets. Thank Goodness You’re Here! is unashamedly Northern

There are some tasks and light puzzle solving to undertake for our travelling salesman including fetch quests, mowing the grass and trying to ensure a fishmongers stock doesn’t go all wrinkly on the ice tray. Yet, they’re incredibly intertwined with the ever-growing narrative. The gameplay brings us closer to each resident of the fictional town in ways nuanced to their job or position within the community.

The chosen art style and audio in Thank Goodness You’re Here! is incredibly well suited. The goofy cartoon townspeople all have stereotypical visual personality that I could immediately relate to – such as a wrinkly red nose for an old bartender and a ‘Karen’-type who works on the checkouts in the supermarket. But most amusingly, our little voiceless travelling salesman who has bemused eyes that read ‘WTF’ throughout the whole game – the very same ‘WTF’ repeating in my head at some of the game’s dialogue perfection.

Barnsworth itself looks and sounds simply like a Northern town. A little rough around the edges, the odd rat poking out of the bins and the dying trade of the outdoor market, it’s all here. The game’s pause menu is even a 1970’s-like grainy TV clip of ‘back-to-back’ housing.

A light hearted, fun 60s-sounding OST matches the slower pace of the North, with the town square’s music sounding straight from a black and white comedy. Every slap we hit sounds just meaningful, be it the ‘oof’ of someone’s backside, the red postbox falling down, or on the nose of the town’s resident sleazy handyman. I promise you that the game’s ending scene contains one of the greatest original and hilarious songs you’ll hear this generation.

In times where there is a valid argument for the erosion of adult comedy, Thank Goodness You’re Here! delivers one of the funniest videogames I have played in years. Whilst it teeters there, it never oversteps the ‘oof’ mark. With fun and simplistic gameplay that never gets in the way of the short story of a trip to Barnsworth, this is the best of British humour. If the town was a real place, I’d be on the next coach – but I’d probably take packed lunch and avoid the fish suppers (one for you to discover). Thank Goodness this is now on Xbox.

Thank Goodness You’re Here! launches on to Xbox Series X/S and Windows on December 9 2025, supporting Xbox Play Anywhere. This review was played on Xbox Series X. The game is also available on Steam, Switch and PlayStation. Thank you to publisher, Panic for the code provided for review.