Lethal Company is likely a game you’ve heard of. It fancies itself a co-op horror game, and with a plethora of horrifying enemies chasing you as you’re trying to survive capitalism in outer space, it’s not too wrong. However, despite the scary monsters (that you’re powerless against), and moments where you’ll be screaming and running as fast as you can in any direction, it’s more of a party game.
The game itself is pretty simple. You and your crew have a quota to meet, and the only way you can fill that quota is by going to different planets and plumbing them for the treasures. It’s very easy to understand, and as with so many great games, that’s a big part of the appeal. There are no complicated controls to master here, which helps the accessibility of the game massively.
As you’re going through the planets picking things up, you’ll start to hear and see strange things. A scuttle there, a glimpse of a shadow that seems to be moving there, and a constant feeling of being watched. These are the horror elements, and the interesting part-cel-shaded graphical style helps make it all feel just sort of wrong. It’s wonderful.
However, despite all of that, the most memorable moments in Lethal Company aren’t really from the game itself, but from the constant idiocies that your friends will offer you. A teammate deciding to go into a room you’ve warned them to stay out of, only for the last noise they make to be a scream; or someone behind you warning you to run as fast as you can, only for you to find some other horror waiting around the corner.
Lethal Company is one of those rare games that delivers on its premise almost perfectly but is elevated entirely by how it is played – oh, and by the inclusion of proximity voice chat. There’s nothing funnier than hearing your friends and loved ones yelling as they run away and get quieter and quieter. If you don’t believe us, just play it and try it for yourself.
