Lethal Company

Lethal Company is an upcoming cooperative survival horror video game developed and published by Zeekerss. It was released in early access in October 2023 and gained popularity on the Steam storefront.

In Lethal Company, players obtain and sell scrap from abandoned, industrialized exomoons while avoiding traps, environmental hazards, and monsters. As employees of "The Company", players must sell enough scrap to meet a series of increasing profit quotas until they inevitably fail and the game starts over.

Gameplay


Lethal Company is a cooperative video game for up to four players played in first-person perspective. Set in a retrofuturistic setting, players work as contracted employees of "The Company". They can communicate with each other through the in-game proximity chat, as well as proximity text chat. Players are tasked with visiting abandoned moons to collect as much scrap as possible. Each moon has one facility containing procedurally-generated rooms, alongside valuable scrap, hazardous traps, and malicious creatures. Players must work quickly and return to their ship before midnight, or the autopilot will leave without them. If there are no living players on board the ship as it leaves the planet, all collected scrap will be lost. Collected scrap is sold at the Company moon, 71-Gordion, to obtain Company credits. At the end of each deadline, if the players sell enough scrap to reach the required quota, they will begin another three-day cycle with a higher profit goal. Failure to meet the Company's quota results in players being ejected into space; this constitutes a game-over.

Players may only carry four items at a time, including one item requiring both hands. Two-handed scrap items, while typically the most valuable, prevent one from performing certain actions when held, like climbing ladders and picking up more items. All carriable equipment (such as flashlights or walkie-talkies) and pieces of scrap require one free item slot each. Players can use their ship's onboard computer terminal to navigate to moons and spend their earned Company credits on equipment and humorous ship accessories, such as a shower or toilet. The terminal may also be used to view the positions of other players, open security doors, or temporarily disable landmines and turrets inside the facility.

The game offers twelve playable moons, including the Company's moon where collected scrap is sold. Moons differ in which and how many monsters spawn, as well as the amount and value of scrap available. Players must spend credits to access the most dangerous and lucrative moons. Moons may randomly have dangerous weather conditions or hazards such as fog, quicksand, lightning storms, flooding, or solar eclipses that hinder players' progress.

Players encounter a variety of creatures while exploring. Most are found inside each moon's facility, but some will spawn outdoors. Most entities are hostile towards the players, though some creatures, like the Spore Lizard and Hoarding Bug, will remain passive until provoked. The game's monsters include the Thumper, a two-legged beast that can reach high speeds but is bad at making tight turns, and the Bracken, a humanoid creature that stalks its prey before snapping its neck, but runs away when spotted. One of the most dangerous enemies is the Jester, an invincible creature inside a giant jack-in-the-box. It wanders harmlessly until it spots a player, whereupon it will begin following them while turning its crank. After popping open, it will hunt and kill all players in the facility.

Development
Zeekerss previously developed games on the game creation platform Roblox. Lethal Company was released in early access for Microsoft Windows on October 23, 2023. Zeekerss said he plans to finish the game within six months. He also expressed a desire for content updates to evoke the feeling of breaking into an "alien zoo" and unleashing all the animals.

Reception
Lethal Company has received critical acclaim on the online storefront Steam, topping the platform's Global Top Seller list and having 100,000 concurrent players in November 2023. Its popularity has been attributed to social media and compared to the similar horror game Phasmophobia.

Kelsey Raynor of VG247 noted that the game "...might not look like much given its grisly cel-shaded graphics, but fans are wholly obsessed with Lethal Company, and its gruesome aesthetic is clearly just another part of its charm." Gabriel Moss of IGN said that "Lethal Company already instills a sense of wonder", and that the game's co-op loot hunts "manage to transcend its limited content and missing systems." PCGamesN included Lethal Company on its listing of best horror games available on PC.

According to an approximate estimate by Push To Talk, Lethal Company has sold more than 10 million copies as of January 2024.

In other games
The Employee appears in the online video game Fortnite as a skin that comes with a Stop Sign pickaxe, the Oxygen Tank and an emote called "Company Jig" was included in the store on June 1, 2024.