Lethal Company, the sleeper-hit horror game taking over Twitch and YouTube

Rising through the ranks on Twitch, Steam, and YouTube to become one of the most-played and most-watched games of the latter part of 2023, Lethal Company has taken the gaming world by storm. The co-op horror game, developed by a specialist of the genre, Zeekerss, was released on Oct. 23, just in time for Halloween, and saw slow but steady growth.

Now, the game is one of the 10 most-played games on Steam, punching in the same weight category of the likes of perennial top dogs Counter-Strike and Dota 2 and even surpassing Call of Duty MW3 in active players. So, what’s the secret behind this horror hit?

Yes, you read that right: Lethal Company, a game developed by a lone developer, is outselling and outperforming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III on Steam. Figures for MW3 on other sales platforms aren’t available, so CoD MW3 will almost certainly have sold more copies overall.

Additionally, the player count for Lethal Company on Steam has surpassed Modern Warfare 3 since around Nov. 25, when Lethal Company’s popularity spiked again.

At the time of writing, Lethal Company had sold over 184,000 copies on Steam, and that number was still growing. The game is one of the top-rated games on the platform, and shows no signs of slowing down.

Lethal Company is a co-op mining game that sees players scavenge scrap from abandoned moons to sell to the mysterious “Company.” However, along the way you’ll encounter creatures, entities, monsters, and other bizarre occurrences, feeding into the horror. The game has a low-poly, lofi style that hypes up the scares.

Beyond this, there’s obvious inspiration from the likes of the SCP project, Phasmophobia, and a host of other places, that really scratches an itch. Those who love games like Phasmaphobia, SCP: Containment Breach Multiplayer, and Barotrauma are going to fall instantly in love with this game. 

It’s also an inherently great game for streams. It’s a horror game, meaning lots of screams and jump scares, and it has co-op, meaning collabs. Super clippable, instantly understandable for the viewer, and generally a great game to watch or play. It’s no wonder it’s going viral.

Unfortunately, it’s unlikely the game will come to console anytime soon. As mentioned, Zeekerss is a solo developer, and may lack the resources to bring the game to console.

However, never say never. Small developers who are able to leverage their Steam success can often find support from publishers and console-makers to publish their game on those platforms. Take Vampire Survivors for example, a simple indie hit that is now on Nintendo Switch. These kind of success stories could suggest that if Lethal Company stays popular, you’ll find it on console in the future.

Lethal Company's Update 45 is set to release in December. You can support the game by purchasing it on Steam, or help future development by following and supporting Zeekerss on their social platforms and Patreon.

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