Online games news Tedious Retro Gamer, 11-02-2024
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The creators of Lethal Company, a game that exploded on social media in December last year, are facing now a challenge that has become a norm in recent times - can they finish their game before players will lose the interest?
To explain why Lethal Company was such a huge success is not an easy one - it is not a pretty game, it is hardly an original production (it borrows heavily from such titles as Phasmophobia), it is very repetitive, it is shallow and after a short time you will see everything, there is to see in the game. One of the important factors behind the success is the random factor - there are only a handful of maps, but since each time you land on a moon a new set of dangers is assigned and the layout of rooms is put together all over again, this means each time the game is slightly different.
Another factor was, just like in the case of Phasmophobia, the price - 10 Euro can hardly be called a shocking price for a game with the potential for many hours of fun. And the last factor, again like in case of Phasmophobia, is requirement of several players to take part in the game. Of course, you can try to play it on your own, but just like in case of sex, it is definitely not the same if other people are not involved. Which means that Lethal Company (again, like Phasmophobia) is more a foundation on which you can build your own adventures, not a fully developed game for multiplayer. If you have good friends to play with, it can be an amazing experience, but it is completely up to you to find your crew.
And there is another parallel between Lethal Company and Phasmophobia - same game loop. You enter the dangerous place, try to make some money so you can buy some more or better equipment to make your next visit to a dangerous place slightly easier. But the huge advantage of Lethal Company is that you will encounter many different dangers, while Phasmophobia always had just one opponent, the ghost, and that makes all the difference in the world.
In one of the interviews, the creators of Lethal Company, which is, just like everything else, in early access stage, said that they plan to finish their product in about 6 months. In December 2023, Lethal Company peaked at 240,817 concurrent players on Steam, from that point, of course, the interest in the game that has a very repetitive gameplay, went down significantly (about 75-80%). We are about halfway through those 6 months and the game is already just a fond memory for three quarters of the users, so will it be another example of a game that when will actually leave early access, no one will notice? World War 3 comes to mind as a shining example - when it dropped on Steam in 2019 it was a relative hit with about 12,000 concurrent players, but when it left the early access in September 2022 it regained the glory days... for a few weeks before turning into free-to-play title.
Will Lethal Company share this fate? We will see, but since for the first time is going on 30% sale just a few days ago, it is a sign that even the creators noticed the significant drop in interest in their title. Just a tiny footnote - Phasmophobia, which I mentioned several times above, never left the early access. Even though less than 10% of its peak number of players still play this game, Phasmophobia never made any effort to finally be published as a complete product.
12-03-2024
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