July 8, 2022, a trailer for a co-op sci-fi survival thriller game called “Lethal Company” was released to the internet. It had a unique retro, spaceman aesthetic that caught the attention of many people. It wasn’t a game that looked HD, no, it looked like the old games like “Doom” and “Bioshock Infinite.” And then, Oct. 23, 2023, the game was released and immediatley took over the internet. For the cheap price of $10, you got a fun, intuitive, thrilling and constantly replayable game.
The best part was that the game is still in early access, which means it’s not fully complete but for an early access game it feels complete with little to no bugs. There’s still so much in store for the game and that’s exciting. In the game you are a worker for the mysterious Company, which has you go to different planets and collect scrap and trash and random things that cost different amounts to meet the Profit Quota Deadline. If you meet the profit quota you get lots of money to buy tools and helpful things but your profit quota goes up and it gets harder and harder to meet it.
If you don’t meet the profit quota in the 3 days you get to collect the scrap, you get tossed into space losing all your money, tools, ship upgrades and costumes. You lose everything and are back at square one. And you might think it’s a simple task to just collect trash from the planet and sell it, however, you’d be wrong. There are many things working against you at all times.
The terrain can sometimes be really steep and hilly or very hard to see in if there’s snow, sometimes you can have lots of fog, lightning that could hit you, and flooding you could drown in. Worst of all is the wide category of monsters in and outside of the main facility on all of these planets. Every monster has their own quirk and feature you have to work around. At night time outside the facility, there are eyeless dogs who are on the hunt but can only run toward you if they hear you talking,walking, or running. You need to crouch and be quiet around these creatures if you wanna bring scrap back to the ship.
Inside the facility you could come across bugs that steal your scrap and defend it with their life, Spiders that are very territorial, the illusive Bracken that could sneak up behind you and snap your neck if you’re not careful, or even a creature called the Coil head which looks like a mannequin with a head on a spring. All of these different monsters can harm you in some way and you have to learn and be aware of them and their behavior.
The gameplay is really simple which is very nice but it also has a Diegetic UI. If you don’t know what that is, it means that all the settings and buttons for the game are actually in the game and not a pop up screen that ruins your immersion and flow in the game. The computer in the game actually makes you type out where you want to go and what you want to do, it doesn’t give you clickable options which makes you feel like you’re actually in the ship. The game also has natural proximity chat embedded into the game.
Proximity chat is a feature that means when you’re far away from your friends you can’t hear them or they sound like they’re far away. You have to meet up closely to talk to them. These proximity features work on the monsters too. The eyeless dogs I talked about earlier listens out for you talking or making noises. The game is extremely intuitive and fun but also leads to some of the funniest moments in your gaming career. The proximity chat and monsters comedic timing is spectacular.
All of these comedic moments and funny coincidences have been documented on the internet and have gained millions of views. And because of this, the game became an overnight sensation and now is one of Steams’ biggest games on their platform. One of the most impressive things about this game to me is that this game was developed by only one person. The Developer Zeekerss did this all himself, every texture, every map and every monster was solely done by him.
