Now Playing: Lethal Company

Lethal Company is a co-op focused sci-fi survival horror game in which you play as employees of ‘The Company’ who send you and up to three friends to various moons to collect, return and sell scrap. You have a set quota to meet within three days. Hit that quota and you can continue on to the next. Don’t hit it and . . . you’ll see what happens.

Every time you visit a moon (even the same moon) the facility you’ll be searching for scrap is randomised so you never know the exact layout, what kind of scrap you’ll find or what kind of nasty creatures lurk within. The randomisation doesn’t always feel fair – I’ve died upon first entering a facility because a creature or lethal trap is just on the other side of the door.

But that random element and just how unforgiving Lethal Company is does give the game a unique sort of charm. I can’t imagine ever wanting to try playing this solo. This is a game designed for co-op because those bad rolls of the dice are where you’ll likely find the most funny and unexpected moments.

It’s undoubtedly repetitive, however, even with the randomisation. The facilities you enter tend to all look alike and follow the same basic structure. There is progression in the sense that as you sell more scrap you can also purchase more equipment to improve your chances of success, but everything resets once you miss that first quota sending you straight back to square one.

And you’ll probably be missing your quota a lot early on so that means a lot of restarts. Sometimes you just get a bad run of luck as the game decides to generate the most hostile facility imaginable and there’s little you can do about it. It can be frustrating but, provided you’re playing with friends, you probably won’t care too much as long as you’re having fun.

And there is a lot of fun to be had in Lethal Company, mostly from your (nearly always) lethal encounters with the weird creatures that inhabit the facilities. You never know what you’re going to find and I’m still encountering all kinds of new weird shit every time we start a fresh run.

I’m not convinced by the longevity of the title, not without a more permanent progression system (an option would be nice) or a wider variety of randomised facility types, but it’s the kind of game I’m happy to drop into now and then to mess about with a friend. We chat, we laugh, we die a lot.

The visuals are deliberately muddy and simple. I’m not sure if the stylised aspect of it is intentional or just a convenient way to hide the low quality models and textures. It’s a shame there’s very little in the way of game or UI customisation options but I know there’s a fairly active mod scene that probably addresses a lot of my issues.

And Lethal Company is still in Early Access so it’s possible it will improve upon all of its features going forward, but given how infrequently and unsubstantial the updates appear to be, I wouldn’t bank on it. For the eight quid we each paid for it I’m sure my friend and I will get some value out of it though.

Lethal Company, at the time of review, is a cheap and cheerful and undoubtedly amusing little co-op game. There’s fun to be had but also a lot of room for improvement. I’m sure it’s something we’ll return to now and then if we fancy a change of pace from our regular Phasmophobia games.

6/10