What you need to know
- Lethal Company is an online cooperative horror game developed and published by Zeekerss where players team up with their friends to salvage scrap from industrialized moons, but strange things are lurking in the shadows.
- The game was released on October 23 and has been steadily gaining in popularity thanks to humorous clips shared on social media.Â
- Lethal Company currently sits at an Overwhelmingly Positive score on Steam, with nearly 39,000 reviews.
With so many new indie games launching each day, it can be difficult for titles to break out and get the attention they deserve. Zeekerss, the lone developer and publisher behind Lethal Company, has found a way to capture the zeitgeist, similar to how games like Among Us and Phasmophobia became viral sensations.Â
With proximity chat and hilariously terrifying survival horror moments that are easy to clip and share on social media, Lethal Company has taken over PC gaming in less than a month.
In a clip posted by user Sej on YouTube, a team of co-op players are collecting salvage. After a teammate opens a door to a new room, a massive space spider appears. Another player begins shouting “Time to go!” and the pair quickly runs away. The clip showcases Lethal Company’s use of audio mixing for proximity chat, with the player’s voice echoing to reflect the room that they are in. A player screams at the end of the clip, and the game adds reverb to match the surrounding area.Â
Clips like these have been racking up insane view counts, and even people who aren’t knowledgeable about the game can appreciate the comedic moments that are being shared by players. In just one month since Lethal Company’s release in Early Access, the game has become a viral hit. At the time of writing this, Lethal Company sits at an Overwhelming Positive review rating on Steam, with just under 39,000 reviews. Just days ago, Lethal Company hit its all-time peak concurrent players so far as tracked by SteamDB, with 117,511 players scrambling to make their scrap quotas.
Lethal Company is currently only available on Steam via Early Access for just $10, with the team at Zeekerss expecting a 1.0 launch to be about 6 months away. In the meantime, players can look forward to additional maps, creatures, and tools to be added as development work continues.
