Game Theory - Oops, Lethal Company Accidently Ended The World

Episode Date: February 29, 2024

Join Game Theory Host MatPat as he exposes the DARK Truth of Lethal Company! *Credits:* Writers: Matthew Patrick, Tom Robinson and Mike Keenan (The Pokémon Biologist) Editors: Dan "Cybert" Seibert, Koen Verhagen, Alex "Sedge" Sedgwick, JayskiBean and SHannon (Bomb0i) Sound Designer: Yosi Berman

Hello internet, welcome to game theory, the show that's never afraid to go outside for scraps allure. You know what? I've been in a bit of a bubble recently. With these being my final episodes, I've been so focused on tying up Lusens, continuing franchises that I've grown up with over the years, doing the episodes that I never had the chance to do, that honestly, I've been missing out on some of the newer games that have been coming out. But today, I'm gonna change that, simply because this game has been impossible to miss. It has been all over the YouTube space. It even managed to sell more copies than the latest Call of Duty. I'm talking about everyone's favorite survival horror co-op game of the moment, lethal company.

The game itself is pretty straightforward. You and up to three of your friends have been hired by a mysterious organization known simply as the company. You travel around to different moons with abandoned bases collecting scrap, and when I say scrap, I do mean literal junk. Broken engines, street signs, even tea. Basically, if you can find it on an episode of hoarders, the company wants their hands on it. Oh, and did I mention that there's also hideous monsters trying to kill you the entire time?

No, uh, well, neither did the company. And so now you and your team have to risk your lives to reach the company quota. Failed to meet it over three days and suddenly you're released of your duties among a style. If you do manage to tow the company line though and reach the quota, you are handsomely rewarded, with another three days of work and a new higher quota. Capitalism, it's great. Currently, there's no ending to this game. The cycle just keeps repeating on and on until inevitably your team fails to gather enough scrap,

or you die trying. And for most players, that's where it ends. They're just happy running around collecting scrap, screaming and twerking as they do. But the experience doesn't have to end there. Oh no, my friends. The company is hiding something from us. You mean like the fact you're playing a game about landing on things that don't exist? Tom, we've been over this. The moon exists, okay?

That's what the company wants you to think. Forgive him, he's out of line. But he also does have himself a point. Not about the moon existing, that's clearly stupid, but the idea of a company conspiracy. You see, by finding hidden files, scanning creatures in the game and using some good old-fashioned real-world history, we can actually start to piece together exactly what. what went down in the thistle nebula.

Why everyone's missing? Why there are monsters patrolling these moons? Why is the company the one behind it all? Strap into your ships, loyal theorists, because we're gonna salvage every scrap allure that lethal company has to offer. Now, in order to figure out what's going on with the company, we first need to figure out what's going on with the world,

or worlds that the company currently operates on. I mean, these places are completely desolate other than the monsters. And yet, here we are collecting scraps from human-based civilizations, like cooking utensils, whoopie cushions. And something tells me that these mutant spiders aren't really into fart pranks. People clearly used to live here on these moons, but then something happened. Something that

managed to wipe out not just one planet's worth of people, but dozens of planets worth of people. When we're playing the game, the terminal tells us that the year is 2,532. So your initial thought might be that years into the future, we killed the planet, we colonized the moons, only to die out as a species anyway. And you know what, you'd actually be kind of right about that. The thing that's probably more surprising though is the timeline of that happening. In your ship, you can find a sticky note that gives you a secret code to punch into your computer terminal. Doing this gives you access to a former crewmate's personal logs, a character known as Sigurd. Sigurd gives us a lot of information about the operations of the company,

but the thing that caught my attention the most was the fact that they were made in 1968, a whole year before Neil Armstrong first stepped foot on the moon. Now that sounds pretty conspiratorial to me, and it turns out that there are some space travel conspiracy theories that align perfectly with these dates. There's one theory out there that believes space travel was achieved during World War II by the Nazis, who sent a bunch of their high-ranking officers to the moon in order to avoid prosecution. These officers then built a base on the dark side of the moon and continued their war efforts from afar. Very far, waiting for the proper time to strike back. Now obviously in real life, this is

ridiculous. But in the world of the game, this would actually tie into the idea of moon bases and the ability to traverse the galaxy before the 1960s. There's even a poster in the game that seems to confirm this type of timeline. Inside your ship, there's this poster right here that talks about preserving food. This isn't just a fun poster made specifically for the game, it is a real poster that was used during the 1940s. Which seems to imply that mankind has been operating in space since at least that era, if not even earlier. Except obviously this poster is not German, it's from Pennsylvania. Notice down here it says in cooperation with work progress administration.

This was a government program designed to employ people to work on public projects like construction of buildings and roads. And in the game, clearly this has seemed to have moved forward into NASA-like projects as well. which would seem to imply that the company wasn't always in the business of collecting scrap. Instead, it seems to suggest that the company got its start helping the U.S. government win the space race. This then is starting to feel a lot less like the Nazi moon-based conspiracy, and more like the 1959 study known as Project Horizon. This study was done by the U.S. military and was essentially their attempt to colonize the moon in the name of good old-fashioned patriotism. But obviously, this was the military, so of course a big part of the plan was to build outposts and design weapons

specifically for moon and space-based combat. One of those weapons was a modified Claymore or Landmine. And, uh, remind me again, what's one of the hazards that we have to be aware of while we explore all these abandoned moon bases in the game? Oh yeah, landmines. It seems to me that in this universe, Project Horizon was a success, or at least something like Project Horizon. It seems like the company has been there since the start. You'll notice that all the landmines and turrets that you can find throughout the game are all suspiciously controlled by the terminal on board your company's ship. It's likely the reason we can connect to all this technology is because the company designed these systems to work

together, they created both the ship and the weapons that are on these moon bases. So if you're a company that has a government contract to make some space weapons, how do you make money? Well, by inciting and fueling a space war. In one of the data log, Sigurd says, quote, I miss dad, I hope he isn't staying on Titan. People are saying it's not gonna look the same in two years, just told us they are about to go to war and everyone is waiting for it. Every time we go to sell, the company building is shaking like there's a loud furnace inside. War is a brewing in this galaxy and everyone seems to know that it

it's coming. And while it's not clear what the noise inside the company walls is exactly, the fact the noise is kicked in, at the same time Sigurd starts talking about a coming war, gives me reason to believe that the company is ramped up production of all its weapons. And just like Project Horizon recognize the need for newer, more space-efficient weapons, the company also seems to have developed a new type of weapon to use in this upcoming war. Most common type of base that you explore throughout the game is called a factory in the game files. And this makes a lot of sense. Remember, these are the bases that are controlled by company technology. So it's likely that these were the factories being used to create the weapons that we've been talking about.

But outside of just the mines of the turrets, there's another kind of horror that's waiting for us inside of these factories, the monsters that are actively trying to chase us down and kill us. Some of them are descendants of creatures from our own world, like the snare, flee, and the spore lizard, which are part of the same class as centipedes and alligators, respectively. But then there are others that are less naturally occurring. The Nutcracker, or the Jester, for example. These are man-made objects that have been repurposed and brought to life to become deadly, weapons. That might seem like a stretch, or at least it does, until you take a look at the in-game

bestiary. Reading through the in-game bestiary, you find entries like this one for the coilhead. Quote, they've been known to combust into flames when being dissected or even deactivated, and they carry dangerously high levels of radioactive particles. Due to this and other reasons, it has been highly speculated that they were created as biological weapons of war. This was how the company was going to prove its worth during the arms race. Biological weapons. Creatures that would kill anything they found and cause untold devastation for years to come thanks to their radioactive makeup. And it's these weapons, I suspect, that ravaged Titan, and likely all the other moons that we visit as well. Sigurd was right, these places would look different in a couple of years.

Rather than thriving colonies, we're instead met with desolate wastelands, abandoned factories. The only signs of civilization we find is scrap that we're collecting. Items belonging to the moon's former inhabitants, now left to waste in the aftermath of a war, a war that the company itself profited from. But if this was so profitable for the company, why then are we now just reduced to a bunch of scrap collectors? Well, because like every other evil corporation in these sorts of games, eventually they took things too far and lost control. In one of the earliest of Sigurd's logs we hear mention of a golden planet that was supposedly destroyed by a passing meteor. This sounds like it could be another conspiracy theory, and Sigurd and his team certainly think that there's nothing to it.

But surprisingly, the idea of a golden planet, it is totally plausible in reality. Introducing 16 Psyche, a Mylese. a minor planet that orbits between Jupiter and Mars as part of the greater asteroid belt. Due to how reflective it is, scientists have hypothesized the surface might be covered in large amounts of metal. Things like iron, nickel, and yes, even gold. The approximate value of all that precious metal is estimated to be worth $10 quadrillion. $48,000 Elon Musk's worth a metal on this thing. In fact, due to psyche being noticeably more metallic than most other asteroids,

some scientists have hypothesized that it may actually be the metal core of a once larger planet-like object, One that was destroyed when it was, get this, hit by a meteor. In the logs, we hear that Sigurd eventually learns that the Golden Planet was real. The only difference though is that it wasn't a meteor that destroyed it. It was something much bigger and much worse. One day, while Sigurd and his team are selling scrap to the company, he fires up the walkie-talkie and starts hearing strange sounds from behind the wall of the building. The sound screams.

But among the blood-curdling screams, Sigurd's able to make out a voice that tells him the golden planet wasn't hit by a meteor. Instead, it was swallowed up by something called the Biggie. and that whoever was sending this message was inside the beast currently being digested by it. This planet-eating monster is locked away behind the walls of the company, and now the company is doing everything in its power to keep it satiated. When you return scrap, the game plays one of a few short voice lines from the company. Usually these things are just vague company platitudes. We value your commitment, you are true professionals. But there's actually a small chance, around 3% for a secret rare voice line to play.

And these are a lot more ominous. We need you. We need you. The scraps we deliver to get these voice lines are the things that keep the beast at bay. It's a planet eater after all. So we're just feeding it anything and everything that we can find. And, uh, you know what fetches the highest price? A bar of gold.

Perfect for the monster that has itself an appetite for planets made of the exact same stuff. Sigurd in his logs also starts to connect the dots. Quote, What if there really is a big monster in the company building, like the voice told me on the walkie-talkie? They trapped it and we feed it to keep it tame. But what does all this have to do with the company taking war-profitering to far. Aren't they the ones trying to help in this situation? Well, remember earlier, I said that one of the company's biggest sources of money was making weapons. And over time, weapons only become more and more advanced. It's kind of the inevitable law of warfare. In our world, we went from muskets to rifles, to bombs, to missiles, and eventually we reached...

Weapons like nukes are so dangerous because of their indiscriminate and massive amounts of destruction. Everything and anyone that's caught in the blast is laid to waste. And so what happened after America set off a couple nuclear bombs during World War II? They went in, and they tried to fix some of the the damage that they caused. Since then, treaties have been signed about using these weapons of mass destruction because they're so dangerous to everyone and anyone involved. And that is what I believe is happening here in lethal company. As the company continued to make bigger and even more complex weaponry like the coilheads, eventually this would evolve into an even more powerful weapon, one that would devour anything and anyone in its path. In one of Sigurd's logs, he mentions trying to use his flashlight to look into the company building behind the counter where he drops off his scrap. And he says, quote, my flashlight didn't even go back there. The beam, just went dark. Sounds an awful lot like a black hole, one that's been created as the next stage of biological weaponry. Think about it. If someone had the power to create and control their own kind of black hole, they'd be unstoppable.

The problem was, they clearly did lose control. Instead of just lay and waste to anyone that stood in their way, it devoured an entire planet, including the innocent residents that remain conscious inside of this monster to this very day. Knowing that they had just made a massive whoopsie, the company swooped in and tried to fix the mistake, containing the monster within one of their old complexes and constantly constantly feeding it food to keep it satiated so it wouldn't cause any more unnecessary destruction. Maybe this is why they're just called the company and only use text-to-speech voices. They're specifically trying to seem generic, unidentifiable, so that people won't suspect that they were the ones that caused the disaster all those years ago. It's also probably why they only send you to planets that they know are desolate. I'm sure if there are other more resourceful abundant locations out there in the universe,

but that would draw too much attention to what they're actually doing. They need to keep this entire operation under wraps, which leads us to today and the ever-increasing quotas that we have to reach in order to keep things under control. In the words of Sigurd's crewmate Desmond, quote, it's all the guys. We're supposed to think that it's all the transaction, but our real job is keeping an incredible terror fed, how long until its fullness ends and its hunger is insatiable. I actually think that there's an answer to that question. Remember those secret lines I mentioned earlier? Well, there's one that sends us a very specific warning. This wall cannot contain it.

The beast right now, it is contained inside these walls as we're feeding it. But as Desmond said, the beast is never truly full. The more it eats, the more its hunger grow. As we play throughout the game, with each passing three-day cycle, the amount of scrap that we need to bring it only increases. But there's only so much scrap out there in the universe. And with the beast's appetite only growing stronger with time, eventually there won't be enough scrap coming in to keep him full. There is no winning in lethal company. There's only delaying the inevitable. Here's the thing.

While the game's been taken over the internet, it's still only an early access. That means that there's more story on the way, and likely an actual ending. Right now, you could just loop over and over until you can't make the quota, but players have managed to find some that I think ties into where the game's actually going. If you manage to parkour your way underneath the company building, you can actually find a drill on a track pointed straight at the company building wall. It's currently missing two pieces of scrap known as apparatus, devices that are used to power the factories on the distant moons.

It's speculation, but I think when the full game releases, this is gonna come into play. Maybe we're following in the path of Sigurd, believing that there are people that need saving behind these walls. And so we end the game by power in the drill and boston through, only to reveal the beast, We then goes on to destroy everything. Basically, the devs got us in a perfect catch-22.

Either we stop playing the game and stop feeding the beast, causing it to break out of the company building, or we keep playing. We find the apparatus and eventually free the beast using the drill from the company building ourselves. Either way, we are dooming the thistle nebula. There are no good endings in Lethal Company. And that, my friends, is the lore of this game.

An alternate universe where war profiteering in space leads to the inevitable death of humanity, no matter what you do. It is a bleak ending, But you do have to admit the name of the game, it is very accurate. A business that dooms the entirety of the galaxy, truly the definition of a lethal company. But hey, that's just a theory. A game theory. Thanks for watching.