Steam's new viral co-op horror hit has 30,000 'overwhelmingly positive' reviews and 100,000 peak players, rivaling Call of Duty, PUBG, and Apex Legends
Nov. 21, 2023Lethal Company tasks you and some friends with mining resources from deadly planets for the good of “the Company”
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A new co-op horror game is flying up theSteam charts, racking in nearly 30,000 “overwhelmingly positive” reviews and becoming one of the platforms most-played games.
For the past couple of days that I’ve been paying attention to Steam’s ranking of its top 100 most-played games,Lethal Companyhas stayed well within the top 20, even making it as far as the top five at one point. At the time of writing, there are more than 70,000 current players with a Tuesday, November 21 peak of 117,278. That puts it right behind Call of Duty, PUBG, and Apex Legends as the seventh most-played game on Steam.
I can’t help but be reminded ofPhasmophobia, an indie game so influential it’s inspireda number of vaguely similar multiplayer horror gamesreleased to varying degrees of success.
That’s not to say Lethal Company shares a lot in common with Phasmophobia. There’s a loosely familiar structure that puts teams of four players to the task of entering a dangerous environment, but that’s where the similarities end. Whereas Phasmophobia tasks you with identifying spirits, in Lethal Company you work for a probably evil company that sends you to abandoned, previously industrialized moons in search of scrap to drive profits for your employer. Naturally, all manner of horrific creatures await you hoping to, according to Steam’s content warning, decapitate and/or dismember you.
The cash you earn during missions can be used to travel to new moons with higher risks and rewards, or you can dress up your ship with suits and decorations. I have to say, the player characters in Lethal Company got a pretty raw deal when they accepted a job that not only risks death by dismemberment, but also requires them to use their own money to take on new jobs.
Of the many, many glowing Steam reviews of Lethal Company, a lot of them focus on the clever use of proximity chat and how it creates a lot of moments that are terrifying and hilarious in equal parts.
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“My friend was slowly being killed in a room and all I could do was listen to his horrified screams over the radio,” reads one particularly unnervingreview. “Anyways, we met quota….10/10.”
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After scoring a degree in English from ASU, I worked as a copy editor while freelancing for places like SFX Magazine, Screen Rant, Game Revolution, and MMORPG on the side. Now, as GamesRadar’s west coast Staff Writer, I’m responsible for managing the site’s western regional executive branch, AKA my apartment, and writing about whatever horror game I’m too afraid to finish.
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