Video Gamers Podcast - [Deep Dive] Lethal Company [REMASTERED] - Video Games Podcast

Episode Date: July 31, 2026

Video Game hosts Josh, Paul and Ryan are bringing you a special episode where we break down the next gaming hit sensation, Lethal Company. Lethal Company is a horror survival video game with a serious dose of laughter mixed in, and is gaining an insane amount of momentum in the video game world. We’re breaking down the game, why it’s gaining popularity, what works and why you should be checking this game out! Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Disratory, Ol’ Jake, Gaius, Jigglepuf, Phelps, Bobby S, NorwegianGreaser, Dettmarp and NightWizard63   Thanks to our Legendary Supporters: Milkman, Drewsky, Jigglepuf and BadGam3rDad   Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: ⁠patreon.com/videogamerspod⁠ Join our Gaming Community: https://discord.gg/h2cHKAvSmu Follow us on Instagram:⁠ https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/⁠  Follow us on X:⁠ https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod⁠  Subscribe to us on YouTube:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@VideoGamersPod?sub_confirmation=1⁠    Visit us on the web:⁠https://videogamerspod.com/⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

and welcome to the video gamers podcast. Normally on Thursdays, we break down recent gaming news, but this week we ran into a problem. There just wasn't really any news that we wanted to cover here for this week. So instead, we have a first impression episode for you all on a new game that has been gaining a ton of momentum lately. We are going to be talking about lethal company. I am your host, Paul, the most profitable employee of the company.

And joining me, the laziest employee. It's Josh. Dude, what was that behind me? Ryan? Ryan? What? Maybe most paranoid? Paul?

Guys, where are you? Guys? Anybody? You know what? Josh, you are actually probably most paranoid. There were several times you had to remind me to keep talking because you did not know if I was alive or dead. You guys freak me out, man.

I do not like being left alone. Yeah. All right. And then joining Josh and me, we all know there's only one award for this guy, especially in the way our matches went down here the last couple weeks. He has sustained the most injuries by far. It's Ryan. They're out to get me, I tell you.

Everything is out to get me. Ryan, have you survived to the end of a single scrap run in Lethal Company? I feel like you die no matter what. I don't think I've gone through one without dying at all, but, you know, he's got to have some fun. I was going to say you have to live a little, but I think that's all I did was live a little. Oh, bro! Yeah. You have had exceptionally bad luck in Lethal Company.

I'll just say that. And it is great as well. It's very funny. I cannot explain how many matches ended with Ryan reviving, and then we finally get to hear how Ryan died, because a lot of times we had no idea where Ryan went or what happened. All right, this is going to be a lot of fun to talk about. Before we jump into Lethal Company, though, we'd like to ask everyone to rate our podcast five stars, leave a written review in Apple Podcasts.

You can also find us on socials at VideoGamersPod, and we would love for you to come support our show on Patreon. We continue to exist only because of support there. People who sign up get bonus episodes, tons of other perks. Go take a look at multiplayer squad.com. All right. Lethal Company. I've got a Wikipedia description here for anyone who is not aware of the new hotness.

Here's how Wikipedia describes it. A co-op indie horror video game currently in early access. It blends exploration, survival horror, and strategy in a retrofuturistic dystopia where players take on the role of a contracted worker for the company. Players are tasked with collecting scrap from abandoned industrialized moons to meet the company's profit quota. All right. So I would say that this game is gaining a ton of steam. I'm not surprised to see that at all, despite being a lower budget indie game. I think it has all the makings of an indie hit.

The game is incredibly simple. It is cheap. It's $10 for the full price tag. And this game is absolutely perfect for streamers. Are you guys kind of surprised to see this game gaining so much of a following? I'll be honest, man. I'm not. There are certain games that come along that just resonate with people because they are just fun.

A game does not have to have incredible gameplay or incredible graphics. if it puts you in a situation to laugh with your friends. Like, legitimately, you know, if you price it right and you, you target it for what the game is intended for, it does not surprise me at all. I mean, we've seen this lately with games like Among Us, right? Super simple concept, super easy development. I'm not a developer, but you know what I'm saying as far as it's, there's not a lot of complexity to the game itself.

And these things tend to blow up, man. and I am not surprised one bit that this game is gaining the traction that it's gaining. Yep, same. It's just one of those. We see it with a lot of those types of games too, like you mentioned among us. Bopple, so much fun. Ten bucks just recently came out. I mean, you can have definitely more than $10 worth of fun on it, fall guys,

all those types of games that are simple but just so enjoyable. And this is definitely one of them. And there's something very special about shared co-opement. up experiences in a horror game because inevitably people are screaming, they're yelling, they're panicking, they're getting nervous, and there's, and so this game kind of blends that along with the unintentional comedy of how these runs go down and when you mix it all together. There's just something special in the secret sauce of this game and we'll start to break it all down. Now, we, I believe all three of us first heard about this game on our Discord server,

which is free, by the way. There's a link in the episode description. But Ace of Shame and We Like Mowers had both posted about it a couple weeks ago. And so we started checking it out. I don't know about you guys, but what convinced me to start playing this game is that Ace of Shame actually uploaded to YouTube a short snippet of his playthrough, which I think has one of the all-time greatest screams that I've ever heard. And as soon as I saw that, I knew we were going to have to play this game.

Yeah. And we're going to have to put that in the episode, too. I'm a little teapot short assed out. Oh, yeah. Oh, dude, this scream was amazing. Honestly, this is one of the things I love. Like, we are not trying to take credit for finding this game by any means. And this is why our community on Discord is so awesome, you know, is A's basically just posted

and said, hey, I found this game. I'm having a ton of fun with it. I really think other people would like it. You know, we looked at it a little. little bit, but I think we were all playing something. Then we had, we like mowers pop in and say, hey, guys, I don't know if you guys have heard of this game, but it is an absolute blast. And that's when we kind of went, well, if this many people whose opinions we trust are really raving about this, then maybe there's something to take a look at here. And then we did.

And I, you know, this is one of those things where it's like, we're talking about this game now because there is something there. And it's why we're kind of putting it in front of the listeners at this point to say, listen, there's a hype machine and it's growing for a reason. Oh, yeah. So let's talk about how the game actually works. So you can group up to four people in a play session. You work for a greedy corporation. And basically, you are bottom level employees that are sent to these abandoned moon facilities to go walk around, find scrap, bring it back to your ship. And then the maps are procedurally generated. And then the maps are procedurally generated. the company says that you have to maintain a certain level of profit within a certain number of

days in order to keep your job within the company. So for example, when you very first start out, it'll tell you you have to earn 130 credits and you have three days to do it, which means you can run three missions and bring in that amount. If you are able to complete that task within the three days, you just start over with a higher company quota, rinse and repeat. I do not believe there is any way to, quote, beat the game. It just keeps increasing your quota. until you eventually fail. So let's talk a little bit about the game's atmosphere and graphical style. Like, how would you explain what it feels like and what it looks like to be inside this world?

Hung over. Hung over? Going through the fog. It is very dreary. It is very dark. It is very unhappy. So it's kind of a good way to describe it. Oh, man. Yeah, I mean, the graphics in this game are not doing anybody any favors, but they are serviceable enough to not distract from the game. I kind of almost like the art style in a weird sort of way. Yeah. It's stylistic. Yeah. It's a choice. It is a choice. And I think it's a choice that worked for the developers on this one. I'm not ever playing this game and going like, I wish this had Unreal Engine 5 graphics, you know, or something like that. So I think they definitely work for the atmosphere and what they're

trying to do with the game in general. Yeah, I would say it's very creepy. It's very unsettling. One of the things that I think really feed into that is the fact that this game almost has no music. All right. Now, yes, when you order items, you get to hear like the ice cream truck song and stuff like that.

But when you're walking around the actual world, there's no music, but there's a ton of ambient sound. And also, depending on where you're standing, your voices change within the game. and all of this stuff feeds into this high-stressful environment that you are working your way in. It feels very much like walking through Resident Evil 4. Resident Evil is probably what I would say is the game this feels the most like. Operationally, it plays a lot like phasmophobia. So if you're familiar with those games at all, I think that kind of gives you a sense of how it feels.

And then with the graphical style, what works really well with that is that it's very hard. to see anything in the distance. And that is done by design. This game, a lot of it features like proximity. You have to be near people in order to talk to them. You have to be close to something to see what it is. The game also throws certain environmental things at you that we'll talk about. And so as you're walking through this world, it's kind of tough to navigate because there's constantly things being thrown at you that make it hard to see, things that make it hard to communicate. and that all just adds to that high stress level as you're walking through these moons.

Let's talk a little bit about what a brand new play-through looks like. So you load up the game for the very first time. You are on a ship. Maybe you invite a couple friends. They spot in there with you. Josh, will you walk us through a little bit about how the terminal works and how you get these missions started? Yeah, it just dumps you into this really cramped small little spaceship

that looks like a toaster, to be honest. It's your most bare-bones ship that you can imagine, very reminiscent of the trailer from phasmophobia. So if you've ever played phasmophobia, you will instantly feel right at home with where it dumps you and your team. The kind of things of interest are there is a computer terminal. You have to actually type.

So when you activate this, you actually have to type in the commands, which is kind of a neat little thing. I like that they do that. I'm not sure how that works on console, to be honest with you, but you know, you have to type in like moons and then it will give you the list of moons. And then you type in route to the moon you want. If you want to buy something, you have to type in store and then type in flashlight two. And then it'll say, do you want to buy two flashlights and you have to type and confirm and all that. What's funny about that is if you were watching somebody else do it, they're sitting there staring at this terminal and you can see their character just typing away, you know? And it's it kind of is this. Yeah, you can. hear the keyboard clicks and all that. So it's this kind of neat little immersive. It just sets the stage, I guess, you know, as far as like, okay, we're interacting with something. Undoubtedly, everybody forgets to pull the lever, which actually tells it to like take off and land and that kind of

stuff. So everybody's just standing around chatting and then realizing that nothing is happening. And then it's like, Josh, you forgot to pull the lever. And I'm like, dang it. Yeah. And then I run over and pull the lever. And then there is a kind of like a map terminal that just kind of shows like what's surround the ship when you land and things like that. Super, super basic. But this is also where a lot of the laughter and hilarity happens because when you are dead, when everybody dies and you fail the mission, you respawn in the spaceship. And this is the first time that you can actually talk to people in a little while because the dead people are in a different local chat. And so when everybody dies and comes back to the ship, that's usually when people are cracking up

and kind of telling the stories about what happened to them and oh my goodness you know that that kind of thing so i i like that there's that home base aspect to it oh absolutely and and there are a lot of items that you can order from this store we'll talk about some of the higher end items later but like ryan do you want to tell us a couple of the essential items that you should consider ordering at the beginning of missions everybody needs a flashlight get as many as you can because it's super scary in there, I promise you. Flashlights are good. Shovel is allegedly handy.

I don't know. It didn't really help me out. I just swung at the darkness and died. But those are two. Flashlight definitely is one you order. And then like Paul said earlier, it comes down in a ship after you order, kind of like a little drop ship with gear. It makes a little eerie Christmas music noise.

Or an ice cream truck. Yeah, it's like a rocking ice cream truck song. Exactly. It's very loud. Yes. That's how you know where to find it because it's always so dark and foggy. Oh, yeah. So right now there are eight moons that you can go travel to in the game.

With it being in early access, maybe this is something that they'll expand down the road. We don't exactly know for sure. But once you pick a moon, you fly there, you land, maybe you order a couple items. Now you're ready to actually go into the facilities, start doing an actual scrap run. Josh, walk us through kind of how this works, how you get to the entrances and how the runs work. So once you pick the moon that you want to go to, and it should be said that the reason that you pick different moons is difficulty level and weather patterns as well, because you generally want to try to avoid like a foggy weather system because you cannot see a single thing, man. So you land on the moon that you pick and you are out in the wilderness, whether it's a desert environment, a forest, environment or whatever, you know, you set down on the planet and now you have to go into

the facility that you're there to loot, which they're usually close to the ship, but not so close that you can always see them right away. It takes about a minute to run. Yeah, that's about right. Yeah. And the thing is, is that this is where the tension begins, because when you land and you're running through the forest, you will hear certain things that are out there or, you know, maybe you see a swarm of bees or some locusts or something like that. And this is like the, it's like the appetizer to the meal because you're like, oh, man, there's stuff going on out here. Then you find the building.

When you make it to the facility, there are always two entrances to any facility. There's the main entrance and then there's like a fire exit slash entrance that you can find. When you get out of the facility, you think you've made it. Hey, we're safe. You are not safe, man. I think we have died just as much trying to make it back to our ship on these moons as we did inside these facilities. I do like that they add a little bit of different atmosphere. They have different creatures. We have all been eaten by the huge forest giant that just picks

you up and swallows you. I do, I like this aspect. I almost wish the game incorporated a little bit more to where it's like, hey, if we want to stay outside, maybe we have a lower chance of finding scrap, but maybe it's more valuable or something like that. Like, I can just see where they can, they can and they should incorporate more on like the outside world versus like inside the facilities. Yeah. And to be fair, there are some things you can loot outside like beehives, but it's very minimal. Almost everything that you're going to be gathering are inside these abandoned facilities.

All right. So Ryan, for people at home who haven't played, can you explain maybe a little? little bit about like how the button scheme works and what options you have because it's very scaled back in this game. Oh yeah. Definitely. I mean, uh, if you played any game or you move, you'll probably pick this up quick. Uh, just standard WASD spacebar jumps, you know, moving around with your mouse. Um, some of the cool things is is you have a scanner. So as you're running around, you can right click and scan the environment to try to find things. Um, standard pickup, you know, just E picks up, G drops, stuff like that. Um, the most important thing. Um, um, the most important

things though is dancing and pointing. Those are the things that everybody needs to know because if you're in the ship, you have to just stand around and dance while the other person's typing or point. Point to whoever's small it is. Yeah. Those are the only two, but they're very important. So you guys got to remember those. But other than that, yeah, you got your standard kind of controls.

You have four inventory slots. So you've got to get your, hopefully you have a flashlight in there. And then when you're going into scrap, you pick up the scrap. and it fills up a slot. Larger things, you know, you have to actually carry, so you can't pick up more than one. So, you know, you would run them back out and drop them outside. But once you fill up those slots,

then you can head back over to the ship and hopefully not die on the way. The one thing I would add on top of that is that if you do order any items that are powered, like, for example, flashlights, you do have a meter of how much power they can use. and they do not last very long. Any of the items in this game run out of power pretty quickly. Now, if you do go back to your ship, you can always recharge them. But it does require a little bit of strategy as you're going around these areas.

If you just have the basic flashlight, you're kind of just like clicking it on to take a look. And then you immediately click it off, walk forward 10 feet, click it again. So you're kind of playing that kind of game because you have to be careful with resource management. because honestly being able to see, I would say, is the most important part of lethal company. And it's very easy to find yourself stuck and abandoned and in the dark. We've all been in situations like that. We don't always order flashlights for everyone. We've been on runs where we just order two flashlights.

But if those people happen to die and you can't pick up their flashlight, it is incredibly hard to try to work your way out of these facilities as we have discovered on more than one occasion. Dude, running around without a flashlight is the scariest thing in video game. I mean, it's one thing when you can see where you're going. It is another because this game is dark. There are some rooms that we have been in where it is pitch black. And you can't see a thing. At one point, we were going through a facility. We had no flashlights because we had died and we didn't have any money.

And I remember fumbling around in the dark trying to see the bright yellow oxygen tanks that you guys have on your backs. And then losing them for just a second, man, and then instantly panicking. As in like, oh my goodness, I'm all my myself. Where are you guys? Where'd you go? And then it's like the game has this incredible proximity chat. So thankfully when you guys are like, we're over here, we're over here.

I can hear the direction you are. So it's like I can try to go in that direction. But man, does light and flashlights in this game are life and comfort and all the good things in life and not having one or all the. the terrible things. It's crazy, too, how fast it makes you panic. Oh, absolutely. And you hear somebody like, oh, yeah, we got it.

And then you don't hear their voice anymore. And, oh, crap. That's how I ran off the side of the stairs into the depths of the facility and died. And they're like, wait, where'd Ryan go? I don't hear him. Ryan? Ryan? You're just instant, instant panic, instant freak out.

But yeah, the proximity, too, is just so amazing. That's what heightens it and makes it better. You'll go and you'll think somebody's dead and you guys are wandering around calling for each other. And then you hear each other. You know, I'll hear Josh. And he'd be like, Ryan, Ryan. It is the most glorious sound you can ever hear in a game is to hear somebody's voice from really far off calling to you. Because then you're like, I'm not alone.

He's still alive. Come to me. I would go as far as to say proximity chat is the secret sauce of what makes this game special. A hundred percent, dude. A hundred percent. And it seems so silly, right? Because other games have local chat. Like, this is something that is, you know, I mean, this isn't almost, like, I don't want to say every game, but this is a very common thing. But there is something about lethal company where the proximity chat in this game and the way that they handle it and the situations that they put you in is 100 percent the secret sauce to this game, Paul. And there's

almost two sections to it, too. Like in game when you're in the facility and you're running around together when you're alive. And then the other half when you and somebody else died and you're sitting talking to them about how, you know, the other guys are still in the facility, what happens. And then when they finish or they get back and you respond, then everybody talks about what just happened and what went. And so it just, that's a whole different way you can talk to each other. It's just, it made it for me, for sure. So we're going to go ahead and take a short break. And then we'll come back and talk about some of our favorite examples of how this proximity chat works.

Okay, we are back. So we've talked about this a little bit, but maybe just to flesh it out in a little bit more detail. When you are in this game, I would say the proximity chat is relatively close. You've got to be within about 40 feet of other players in order to hear them. As they get further away, their voice very quickly starts to dim to when you can no longer hear them. And then also, if a character does die, whether you are attacked by a monster or if you fall off a cliff or whatever happens to be the case, suddenly you are immediately placed into the death chat. So you can hear all the live people talk,

you can spectate them, you can turn your camera, all of that stuff still works, and as soon as someone else dies, they enter the death chat with you, and you can speak to each other, but whoever is alive can only hear other live people. Now, part of the problem with games like this is that if you die,

now you can no longer play. You're out of the mix, and then it really sucks. In this game, I would argue sometimes it's better if you die because you are with the other dead people yelling and going crazy, telling the live people what to do, but they can't hear you. There were so many times that this came into play. Poor Red Letter. All right. We played one session with Red Letter, but we have to talk about this.

Josh, you and I could not stop laughing. We were playing with Red Letter and Ace. We get into the match. we teach Red Letter the buttons. I don't even remember what went down. You, me, and Ace died within the first two minutes of a scrap run. And Red Letter is just walking around, sort of talking to himself, but also having no idea how this game works and trying to just get answers while we're all just laughing so hard because he can't hear us. I don't know that I've laughed that hard in a really long time, especially in a video game.

this is this is red's first time playing this game he's got the basics he knows how to move and he knows how to turn on a flashlight and that literally is it the three of us die and red letter is stuck inside this facility by himself with zero clue what to do and like you said he keeps just kind of talking to himself but he is calling out for us at the same time going like guys yeah guys is it guys is anybody there is my mic working can anyone hear me? Oh man, don't tell me I'm by myself. Don't tell me. Hey, Josh, Paul, Ace, Ryan, like, where is everybody? And we are in the death chat, absolutely rolling on the floor because Ace is getting, or Ace, Red is getting more and more freaked out over time. He's in the

dark. He has no idea what to do. He finds some scrap. And we're all cheering going like, go, Red Letter, go to the exit, go to the exit. And he winds up going to the exit. We lose our minds. Like it was just, it was one of the funniest things to observe. And that's why this game works. Because in a lot of games when you're dead, it's not fun anymore. Right. Like, oh, I'm out of the match. But in lethal company, when you're dead, I'd almost say sometimes it's heightens it because you're able to observe at that point. And oh my goodness, man, that is where the fun just happens. Oh, it sometimes happens right off the bat. Like with, Ryan. Now, Ryan said he did not know about quicksand. He must not have been listening because Josh

and Ace explicitly in one playthrough said, it's raining. Watch out for quicksand. Josh started running into quicksand said, oh, I just ran into quicksand. Ryan somehow doesn't hear any of this go on. We are all running up toward the main entrance of this one moon facility. And all of a sudden, we just hear Ryan talking and he's like, all right, guys, yeah, we're going to go in there. Crap! And then it's just silent. And we're like, Ryan, Ryan, Ryan fell in quickstand, didn't he?

And then Ryan had to spectate the entire rest of the run. And as soon as it was over, Ryan came back and he's like, yep, it was the quickstand. I ran straight into it. I can't tell you how many times listening in the death chat, I just hear Paul just, oh, poor Ryan. Poor Ryan. I will say, like, another. This is why the proximity chat is so good, because there was another time we were playing

where I believe it was the four of us. And you two had missed a jump. Sometimes you have to almost like parkour jump to get to some areas. And an ace and I had gone into the facility. You two had tried to make a jump and fallen, which means you had to circle back. And it took you guys probably like 60 seconds. So Ace and I come back out. It was probably longer than that because Ryan and I had no idea where to go. I took you up to the. the top of that rock and it was like, this isn't the right one. Ryan is like, no, you definitely go that way and it was not the correct direction. It took a good, like, I'd say three minutes to make our way back. So we go into the facility, we're waiting, you guys don't show. We go outside.

We start calling out to you guys going like, Paul, Ryan. Oh, Ace, I think they're dead, man. Do you think they're dead? Could they have died already? We're calling out again? Nothing. We think you guys are toast. So Ace and I are. like, well, I guess we're doing this, buddy. Like, let's go in. We go in. We start looking for scrap. We come out at one point to just put some scrap outside. And lo and behold, we hear your voices. It was one of the most like joyful sounds in a video game to realize that you two were still alive. And you guys just pop up over the ladder that you were climbing. And we, it was like a reunion. We're just like, yes, you guys

are alive. Yeah, that's great. But we had no idea. And that's the beauty of the proximity chat is if somebody go silent. You don't know if they're just too far away or if something got them at that point. And they can't tell you. Yeah. You have to wait to find out. And that's part of the fun. Even sometimes when we're just walking inside, because there are pits inside these facilities. And one time, all of us are just running through this big giant open room. Ryan, I guess, got a little too close to the ledge or maybe didn't realize that it was a ledge and just fell into darkness. So we're just a group of four talking and we're all together. Next thing we know, Ryan's just gone.

Like none of us had any idea. I think one of us even said, like, maybe he accidentally fell off the ledge because we didn't see any monsters. But, oh, it's just, it's so funny to see how players get picked off one by one and then just being able to find out at the end of a run. Sometimes the end of those runs can be really dramatic. Do you guys remember the foggy planet when Ace and I were the only two alive? Dude, the forest giant.

got Ace and you were running for your life and all three of us are cheering. We're in the death chat and we are literally cheering going, like, oh, run ball, run! No, that's the wrong side of the ship. I mean, we are screaming at the top of our lungs to you. You can't hear any of this. All we see is you running for your life with a forest giant chasing you. We're losing it. But yes, this is where this game just absolutely shines. Is it getting to watch what happens to your teammates, yell and scream at them, you know, feel alone for a minute, that kind of thing. Yeah, the voice chat in this game is a thousand percent what makes it incredible. And we will say that, you know, as gamers, we know, like, it's very easy to hop into

Discord and just, you know, group up and do it like that. One thousand percent do not. I know that it seems like it's the thing to do. But if you pick this game up and you play it, never use a group chat like Discord or something like that. You have to use the in-game chat because it is what makes it. 100%. You have to just let the game play out how it plays out. I know Josh and I kind of disagree about Disco Elysium. I feel the same way about that. Don't reload saves. If you fail dice rolls, let it play out. It might even turn out funnier or better than you thought. This kind of works the same way. If someone dies, you're not restarting a new mission or anything. You just got to let it play out. Now, we haven't really talked very much at all about the actual monsters because I think we probably

died equal amounts to environmental hazards as we did monsters. The monsters are actually probably more fun to talk about and what more people think of. What are a couple examples of like monsters you might run across. Spiders? Yeah. That's what's so good about this game too is that there's just every, you know, a lot of other games, they'll, the matches kind of mesh into each other and you kind of,

they're forgettable. There's a story from like every match. You mentioned monsters. There was one where this, I've never seen it before, this jump thing jumped up on my head and I'm like, oh, guys, what is this? What is this monster? And it's from your eyes's point of view, it's like,

it was all muffled. you couldn't even understand me and then, oh, Ryan's dead. I'm in the tram all of a sudden. I hear you guys talking, oh, man, it got Ryan. So there's so many. I know, Josh,

you know a lot more of the monsters than I do. Yeah, there is a good variety of monsters in this game. There are the little flying bugs that will eat you. There are the like the face huggers. You get the weird shadowy, spiky guy that will just bolt up on somebody and break their neck and then drag them off.

You can see his eyes at a distance. They shine in the darkness. The crazy thing is that can happen. so fast that if it's the guy that's at the back of the group, you don't know that he got snatched. So now you're looking for your buddy who you think is lost. And he's actually dead because he got jacked by a monster. There's slime that's hard to see on the ground. I got killed by slime at one point because I didn't even know it was killing me. There are weird monsters where if you look at them, they will not. This is kind of like a Five Knights at Freddy's throwback or nod where it's like,

if you look at them and stare at them, they can't move. But the second you turn their back, they will rush up on you. Um, you know, there's, there's even like environmental stuff. There are landmines. Uh, we were wandering and fumbling around in the dark. And I was leading the way. I opened up a door. I step in and kaboom instantly. I'm toast. You guys all saw me just get exploded. You're laughing. I'm like, what happened? But I'm asking in the death chat. So I don't have any clue. All I know is I'm dead. You guys are all laughing at me. Um, There's auto turrets. I mean, that's just what's inside.

I already talked about the forest giants outside. There's these weird eyeless dog things that come out at night that'll terrify you. Like, this game has so many ways to scare the tar out of you and to murder you that that adds to the hilarity of people dying. I mean, on top of just, oops, I missed a jump and I fell to my death, you know, or quicksand. And there is also an in-game clock running. So when you land, it's 8 a.m. and you only have until midnight to finish your run. And the time moves very fast. And that also does impact the environment. So once it hits like three o'clock, that's when the scariest biggest outdoor creatures start to spawn. And if everyone is not on the ship by midnight,

the ship's going to take off whether or not people are on there. And you want to be careful not to leave people or bodies behind because if you do die and have to respawn, there's a pretty hefty fee for that unless you recover the corpse. So that's another part of it. If you see your buddy get his neck, you know, broken and then the monster runs off, I can pick up Josh's lifeless corpse and try to run it back to the ship. So there's just so much of this stuff coming into play. And I just have such vivid memories. Like in one run, Ryan, you and I, I think it was with the flying bugs. and Ace and Josh both die. You and I try running together,

but then we realized that one of the monsters opened one of the other doors and you and I ended up sprinting in opposite directions. And I think we both thought that the other one was dead and we're lost and trying to find our way back out and eventually, because you're going to constantly talk

whether you know everyone's dead or not. You're just hoping maybe someone will start talking back. And sure enough, at some point, we ended up finding each other made our way out. But yeah, you mentioned it earlier, Ryan, but this game just goes from, we have a perfect plan.

We've had runs. Let's order fancy flashlights. Let's order weapons. Let's get a stun grenade. And five seconds later, it's just sheer chaos. I still to this day, don't know when I had that shovel

and we got attacked by monsters immediately and I just started swinging the shovel. I still think I might have taken one or two of you guys out. I don't know. I was just swinging at the monsters. but it is just such a fun time. And then at the end of every run, the game also gives you a note for players.

And so it might give you an award like most paranoid, which means you're moving the camera the most, sustained most injuries, most profitable by bringing, you know, the most scrap back. Somehow I never got like any notes. I had mentioned that to you guys.

You never get any notes. Yeah, because I'm not getting the most scrap and I'm not moving the camera. always feel like I play it more as support, but you even get a couple of awards like that, which I think also adds another layer of fun. I was just always dead. Yeah. Ryan died.

I would say 85% of the runs. All right. So when you're doing these runs, you are finally at the end of your time to get your quota in. And so once you do your three missions, you now have to go sell all your scrap. So you go to the facility. you place everything that you want to sell up on a counter. Sometimes you're very close to your quota

and you might have to sell gear you would normally want to keep, like flashlights or keys or things of that nature. And you have to ring a bell to get Jeb's attention. And you don't really see a whole lot of Jeb, but he has like tentacles. His tentacles will reach out, grab all the gear, and then you get a little summary of how much the scrap is worth. That's not all you can do with Jeb as we very,

quickly learned. Oh, don't tick off Jeb. It is, we'll leave that one for the, uh, for the listeners to figure out, but just, uh, you know, if you're, if you're, if you're feeling brave, maybe you, uh, you're a little impatient when you ring that bell. Dude, he doesn't come right away. Sometimes you ring the bell and Jeb comes quickly. Sometimes he doesn't. You just got a, you got to let him know, you're waiting. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. All right. So let's go ahead and take our last break. And then we'll come back and talk about some of the more advanced stuff in lethal company. All right. So as we start to wrap up this episode here, there is more advanced tech that you can get in this game that drastically changes how you play it. Up to this point, we've really only talked about playing from the perspective of a complete noob.

Flashlights, maybe a shovel or two. That's really all we ran with in the beginning. As you do multiple runs and you start getting more money, you can start ordering things that do allow you to play differently. Josh, I remember the first time that we ordered Wauki-Tockeys, and you decided to stay back in the ship as like our monitor. How did that switch up gameplay? I'll be honest, I've really enjoyed that. I'd like to do it some more because what you can do when you have a squad is you can leave a guy in the ship and you can monitor your teammates and you kind of get this like on the one monitor we talked about. You can kind of see a map that's around them. And on that map, you can see if there are enemies nearby.

They display as a red dot. So I can sit there via walkie-talkie. And let me tell you, this sounds exactly like walkie-talkie. This game has really, really good sound design. So if you want to know, like, imagine what it would sound like to talk to some dudes that are in a scary, old abandoned facility with monsters over walkie-talkie. And this is that. So I would, you know, hey, guys, stop. Stop.

There's a monster ahead of you. It's pathing around. Okay, go to your left. Go to go to your left again. Like, watch out. Oh, no. Run. Run.

It's chasing Ryan. Oh, I think it got Ryan, guys. And so you have this person that can now kind of oversee things and direct things a little bit. But just like everything else in this game, there's a fear because the battery on the walkie-talkie will wear out. Now, it's fine if you're the guy in the ship because I can recharge my battery. but you guys that are in the facility are going like, dude, this thing's about to die. And, and, like, you start getting nervous about that too. So it really does add a little bit to the strategy element of the game to be able to direct people because getting lost in these facilities is very easy.

There is no mini map. There is no compass. If you're not paying attention to where you're going, you will get lost. And then you don't know how to find your way out. And so having somebody that can watch and say, okay, there's a monster. Hold. Hold. Run! Go now! Or, okay, guys, make her right. Now make a left. Now the exit door's right there. Like all that stuff is very, very handy to have. Plus, worst case scenario, you can always take off.

So if we all die, at least we don't lose everybody and everything, because that happened to us a lot. Yes, it did. Yeah. There's also certain security doors that you cannot open unless someone is on the ship. So that's where it is very useful to have someone navigating the group. Now, one thing to keep in mind is that only the person holding the Waki can hear that communication. So in our runs, when Ace had the Waki-Toki. So when you would talk to him, Josh, even if we were right next to Ace, we couldn't hear it.

Wait, you guys couldn't hear? Oh, see, I didn't know that. I thought it was just like coming out of the speaker and all you guys could hear it. So with proximity chat, everything you were saying to Ace, Ace was relaying to us and then we would relay a message back to you. So if Ace were to fall off a ledge and lose that walkie, like, it's over. We can't talk to you back. It's just radio silence. Yeah, there's also advanced stuff like teleporters, a ton of cosmetic stuff that you can

add to your ship or different outfits. There's also a TZP inhalant, which I have not used, but it is actually an inhaler that has a mix of amphetamines and helium. So you can choose how long to suck on that inhaler. Oh, goodness. The longer you, I'm already starting to laugh. Think about it, the longer you inhale it, the longer your stamina lasts. You can actually sprint for 30 straight seconds if you're on this inhaler.

Oh, nice. But it makes your voice high as if you just sucked helium out of a balloon. So, and it also impedes your vision. So there is also some strategy to, okay, is it worth the loss of, vision and to have the goofy voice in order to run faster. And there's like more complex strategies. I know a lot of people that kind of have this game on farm status, they will have different assigned roles. One person's in the ship. One person is only sprinting scrap from the exit back to the ship. And they're just doing that back and forth. And there's two people. And all they're

doing is grabbing scrap, setting it outside and going right back in. And so as you play the game more and as you communicate and develop strategies, it really just adds layer upon layer upon layer. Now, all that being said, the game is in early access. It's very rudimentary. What would you guys like to see them add moving forward in future patches? Man.

More emotes, maybe more dances. More dances, maybe more, yeah, that may take away from the awesomeness of just the little dances that we have. but there's not too much that I can think of. I just, I loved everything about this game. Even just the things that I didn't love, like how fast the batteries ran out or things like that. It all just adds to the panic of the game,

which is what makes it so much fun for me at least. So I can't think of anything off top of my head that I would like to change in their near future. For me, the biggest thing that I would like to see is more variety in the environments. I like that when you land on a moon, it's a desert moon or it's a forest moon or something like that. But that's really where it ends because once you go through the doors to the facility, it might as well be the exact same map, like every time.

Now, they are procedurally generated, but some facilities we have gone into have been like four rooms, and that's it. And now you have to go back outside. And I get that the ideas you need to go find the fire exit because that's a different entrance into the facility and maybe that leads to some more areas. But I find that part of the game to get bland. Again, it's the experience with the friends. It's the fear.

It's the panic. You know, it's the hilarity. But from a gameplay standpoint, I feel like this is where the game really lacks in that aspect is to give me a little bit more variety. Like right now, that's all you get. You get a forest planet and you get a desert planet. Even though there's multiple planets. Now, I will say this.

there are some much more advanced planets that you have to pay money to go to. And I don't know this because we haven't experienced it. But from what I understand, one of them is actually a giant mansion. So now you're inside like this haunted house area. Oh, no. You know, so I think we're getting glimpses of where they're going. But I will say it does start to feel a little stale when you're always just walking up like a metal stairway or the, there's just not a lot of variety in the environments. despite being procedurally generated, it's kind of like the same six rooms randomly copied and pasted.

There's like the one really big wide open area. There's the little jump puzzle where you've got the little pole that sticks out in the ledge and then the cut open area across. So you see the same stuff over and over. I would like to see more room variety. Certainly just more moons. When there's only eight and three of them are like late game that you can't really. access, you're sort of just going to the same initial three to five over and over. I would like to see maybe just a little more variety with weapons because if you want to fight the monsters,

you have to like hit them with a shovel or a stop sign. And it just doesn't do a whole lot of damage. And it's very easy to hurt other people. Yeah, you can have like a zap gun that like incapacitates an enemy for a few seconds while you're bashing them. Maybe just a couple more options like that. so that way you don't feel... I mean, I still think the monsters should be terrifying and difficult to beat, but I think it should also be maybe just a little bit easier

to try to fight against them. Like, we played one where we had four flying bugs on us, and I managed to kill two with a shovel, but all four of us just died immediately. Yeah. And I kind of feel like, that kind of sucks when you run into a situation like that.

You should be able to fight or run your way out of everything. All right, so basically, uh, anything we miss. guys before we move on to community reviews? I think that covers it, man. I mean, it's, yeah, I mean, the gameplay portion, the voice chat portion, the home base, the selling.

I mean, that's really what there is to this game at this point. Yeah, I'm definitely interested to check out that mansion. I get scared. Ryan is the one who gets the most creeped out before anything happens. That's what I think is funny. It's my anticipation, man. Yeah, like a couple times, Ryan, you even said, like, a couple times, Ryan, you even said like, guys, nothing's happened.

Like, let's just go. Let's just leave. Because you're so nervous about what might be around the corner. Get out of here, man. I'm done. Now, we are recording this episode here on the 19th. The game has hit pretty big spikes the last two days for number of player count. It really seems like this game is just starting to crest and really reach a new level of

popularity. It hit 100,000 concurrent players here just this week. The only bummer. I would say is that you really do have to play with people. Yeah, for sure. And it really helps if you play with them long term. You can play with randoms. It's going to be rough.

You're going to run into bad teammates. You're going to run into people who go AFK or people who are trolling. If you're able to play with your own buddies, I think it's going to be far better because you really do need to have like four people for every run. Whether you go into a match solo or a group of four, the quota is the same. So you're really just at a disadvantage. if you're not running with a full crew. Yeah.

This is not a game that is intended to be played solo whatsoever. Duos can work. I have played with, you know, Ace a couple times with just the two of us. That definitely makes it a little bit better. But this is a game that shines with three to four people. Absolutely. The beauty is that this game is only $9.99. So it's really not hard to get three to four people invested in it.

You know, I mean, think about, I always compare it like this. My kid just went to go see the Five Nights at Freddy's movie. It was $12 for the ticket. They got an hour and 50 minutes worth of entertainment out of that. You can spend $10 and get $6 to 8 to 30 hours of entertainment out of this game for less than a movie ticket. And that's really the right way to approach it at that point. And I know that as gamers were hesitant to pick up games sometimes because it's like another game in the library. This is one of those ones where you need to just accept that this is a.

cheap game. It will have a shelf life, but it is going to be some of the most fun $999 that you can spend. Oh, absolutely. That would be the best. I have a buddy, Sean, that I was hounding him to get it. And he's like, I don't know, I don't know. And then he must have looked it up because then he went, oh, it's only $10. All right. I'll get it. Yeah. I'm like, dude, I promise you're going to have so much fun. And not to put Paul on the spot, but you know, we all get that this isn't necessarily Paul's favorite type of genre, a cup of tea. But even Paul when he dove in was like, guys, for $9, I'll tell you what, I'm going to play this game for four days. We'll get a lot of fun out of it. And then I probably won't touch it again. You know, Ryan, you and I are much more likely to try to recruit somebody else to keep playing and things like that. But I mean, even from Paul's standpoint, though, he's gotten his entertainment value out of this. You know, I mean, so I think that there's multiple ways that you can approach this game and just say, listen, this doesn't need, I don't have to commit to this. I can spend $9. I can have fun for four, five, six hours or longer. And then you can just call. it and say, hey, that was a good time. It was worth the money. Yeah. Like comparing this to phasmophobia,

I hated phasmophobia. I get why people like it, but to me, you just walked so slow. There was no sprint. There was no combat. And lethal company takes all the best parts of phasmophobia, improves upon it. They do let you sprint. It has the comedy of the death channel and when you're playing with friends. And when you add all that stuff in there, along with occasional combat, like I even said, this is the best version of phasmophobia that I can picture. Yeah. And even I enjoyed playing it. Now, I would never be the one to say, hey, guys, let's all hop into lethal company.

But if you guys are playing, I jumped in every time. There was never a time that I was like, you guys play. I'd rather go do something else. I still hopped in every time when normally I would say this kind of game is not really the kind of game that I would go for. Yep. All right. Josh, I think you've got some community reviews to read. I do. Okay. So this game is an early access. It has not been out for very long. But, you know, the reviews are starting to pour in because like I said, this game is gaining a lot of popularity. So this first review is 13 hours on record. And it says it is a recommended review. And it says the steam trailer really doesn't do this game justice. It's extremely early access right now. And the gameplay itself is nothing too spectacular yet. But the super dynamic proximity chat is what really makes this.

game for me. Hearing the muffled screams of someone getting choked out by a bug, followed shortly after by the panicked whales of another crew member running for their life, is likely one of the funniest things I have ever experienced in a video game. It truly is such a simple yet infinitely expandable mechanic that I'm really excited to see this get built upon in the future. Totally agree with all of that. Now, we played another horror multiplayer co-op game that was very much in early access with GTFO back in the day. And I kind of feel the same about this game. Like those were both games that had great ideas. There's just not enough. There weren't enough rundowns at the time in GTFO. In this, I would say the maps are kind of limited.

But the core game itself is a great idea. It's only going to get better over time. It's well worth checking out. Yeah, absolutely. All right. This next one is not recommended. They've got 22 and a half hours on record. And it says, it's a great game overall, but as much of a personal gripe that this is, I can't recommend it until the dev adds more indoor location variety. Most of the planets just have the facility style indoors. I absolutely love the mansion level, and I think the game would have so much more replayability if there was more variety to the indoor parts of each moon.

I know the dev is capable of this because the upturned was a banger with its locations. I just hope that more variety can be added here. here. I don't know what the upturned is. I'm assuming it's a different game by this same developer, but this is what we were saying is this is where the game seriously lacks at its current moment. Agreed. Yeah. All right. This next one is not recommended three hours on record. And it says it's pretty fun in concept, but unfortunately it's pretty bone-drying content right now. While every mission is randomly generated, there's almost no variety in terms of the level tile sets. There's only two styles of levels with the only difference between all of them, but one planet being the odds of a

certain loot, the cost of travel, and some world hazards outside the dungeon. Once you're inside the dungeon, it's almost always the same few rooms randomly repeated ad nauseum. I can forgive the landing spots being the same on the planets, but dungeons lacking all variety caused me to lose interest after my first extended play session. Like how many stairwells where you can go up and then you just look and there's nowhere to go and then you go down and then that leads to another room like how many of those stairwells have we run through by this point it's it's hundreds and this even the i was going to see even the little kind of jump puzzle parkour jump thing is just that i beam across it looks exactly the same every single time the sometimes there's a door on the other side

sometimes there's not the the corridors with the steam yeah we've run through that a hundred times like it is just the same stuff over and over most of the negative reviews in this game are pointing that out. Now, again, to be fair, this is very early access. You know, I mean, there is a lot that the developer can do to improve this, but the complaints by the majority of people that are issuing complaints are generally the same feeling. It's just, there's just not a lot here yet. And so, you know, that's why we pick negative reviews, right? So people can go, hey, what's wrong with the game? Well, this is one of the things that's wrong with it. All right. Last one is a recommended review. And it says, I bought this for myself and

friends, our first three-hour session was, I reckon, the best co-op horror experience we've had in ages. Perfectly cut screams, eerie silence, frantic pleas for help, and the lot. While it still has a ways to go before it's complete and bug-free, the dev has absolutely nailed the atmosphere in the experience. The creature content is well fleshed out and pretty original, save for a few must-have gimmicks that fit very well. The communication and teamwork dynamics are a pleasant surprise. Yep. You have to work together. That's one of the beauties of this game is you have to rely on your teammates. You do have to work together to kind of meet the quota and do what you're supposed to do.

You know, you can have the best playing in the world. And then when somebody gets killed and people start screaming and running for their lives and you get separated because you run in opposite directions, now you're out of range of the proximity chat. Panic sets in. It's hilarious. I mean, you know, this is the premise of the game and where it gets really fun. but the game definitely does have a path ahead of itself to make things better in the long run. Yeah. And you know what it's good when like just you reading that review and he was talking about the stuff they ran into and it just made me smile knowing what we went through, imagining what

they went through and you know it must have been crazy and they all laughed and talked about it. So you know it's just got a good core of a game there that hopefully they can keep expanding on. Yep. All right. Well, that's the positive reviews. That's the negative reviews. We always like to play a little game where we guess the Steam review score on the scale of 0 to 100 percent. I think I'm the reigning champion. It's been a while since we've guessed a score here. But I'm just going to dub myself champion because I feel like I am. Mario Wonder? Did I? I think that was the last one. I know what you might. Who was that? I don't remember who won, but I don't think it was me. You're probably right, Josh. Was it Ryan?

Was that you, Ryan? Oh, yeah. Totally. No, it wasn't Ryan. I wasn't, I wasn't there. You know what, I'm going for it. I know this game. Oh yeah, that's right. You weren't even in that one. I wasn't even in this. You sucker. I almost got you. This game is starting to blow up in popularity. I guessed 90% on the dot. I think you are right. I think it'll be in the 90s. I put down 93. Okay.

And honestly, I wouldn't be shocked if you came back. and told me it's 86 or you can tell me it's 98. Like I feel it could be anywhere in between. I'm going to say 93. All right. Ryan? Yeah, I think you guys are both close. I think anyone who's going to leave a review on this one is probably, you know,

overwhelmingly positive. So I'm just going to go one above Paul. Do 94. See if I can snatch it if it's higher. 94. All right. The actual result. Which I didn't write down, Ryan.

So you're going to have to edit this out real quick. I'm leaving it in. Is? What is? Seam search. 97%. All right. 97% and guys, this is out of 18,600 reviews.

Wow. This is not a game that has like 200 reviews on it. There's a reason we're covering this right now. This thing's blowing up. And it's blowing up for a reason. And that's why we're doing. in this episode is to put it in front of you and say, hey, we're always trying to, you know, introduce you to fun games, to interesting games, to games that'll be fun for you to play

or play with friends. And this is one of those. It's kind of shocking. I'm not shocked to hear that rating because I've played the game and I know how much people love it. But this game does not do a single thing that's revolutionary. And yet it somehow grabs little bits and pieces, makes its own very stylistic environment. This game has a very unique feel. It provides something I've never played in anything else. And yet none of it is anything that's like a technical marvel or anything, right? It's not that pretty to look at.

The sound is good. The proximity chat is cool, but they didn't invent any of this stuff. There's no weapons. So you can't even really talk about like gunplay. But yet there is something there. It has that, you know, that unknown quality that makes for just, a game. It has that it factor. That's Zinisei Croix. Yeah, the

Genesee qua. All right. Well, uh, let's, let's go ahead and do make love, Mary murder. All right. Now, I know that we haven't played this game a ton. We've really only been playing it for the last week or so. But at this point in the game, how would you guys rate it? Is this game marriage material highly recommended? You can get a ton of

hours out of it. Is it make love? Maybe play it for a little bit and then drop it. Murder material where you don't recognize it. recommend it. What are you guys going to say? Let's start with you, Ryan. Don, done, dun, dun, dun, don't, done, don't, come on down, baby. Come on the aisle to me. I'm going to marry you up. Oh, I love it. Despite being the guy who is dead for 50% of the runs, still loves it. Oh, it was just all of it. The way, like we've said a million times throughout this, you know, episode, like just everything about it is my type of game. Playing with friends and people

online. I love co-ops. Everybody knows that. And then as much as it freaks me out and gives me anxiety, I love the eerie, creepy, jump scare stuff. All of that stuff just hits all the points that make me happy in a game. So, yeah, I'm a definite for sure, Mary. Yeah. For me, you give me the ability to be scared and on edge and panicking. And then absolute, I'm talking like tears streaming out of your eyes, laughter at the same time. There's something there for me on that. I'm with Ryan on this one. It's a Mary. You know, it's goofy because, yes, this game will get old quickly. But right now,

playing this game with friends is one of the funnest experiences that I've had in a while. And I get the premise that it's just not very fleshed out. It's very early access. There's a long way to go. But I can't imagine three other people saying, Josh, do you want to play lethal company with us and me ever turning that down. And that says something. Sure, the gameplay might become routine. It's like, dude, we found this scrap a thousand times, but I am always going to be in for somebody getting snatched by a monster. Everybody literally shouting at the top of the lungs and going, run, run! And then just watching everybody scatter, hearing silence descend over people, you're calling out for your friends, then you die, then you get warped into the death chat, everybody

is cracking up. I mean, these are the experiences that I absolutely love about gaming, and this game gives it to you. So for me, simple gameplay aside and repetitiveness, it's a Mary for me because it's just such a fun social game to play. For this one, my initial response is that it's kind of writing that line between Mary and make love, but it's the $10 price tag that's going to push it into marriage territory. I feel like this game's got about a max of 15 hours for me where I have zero desire to play beyond that. But for people who really love it, there will be people that play this game for thousands

of hours. It's just not made for me in that regard. This is the kind of game that I don't know that I would say the game itself is fantastic, but the experience is fantastic. Run it until it no longer has that feeling. Like every time you get to use it. a new item, you kind of feel that sense again, like the first time we got walkie-talkies or the first time we got grenades. And so as long as there's new stuff to discover, I think that's the

carrot to keep playing. Once you've experienced everything the game has to offer, that's about what I think I would be done. And I'm guessing that's probably around 15 to 20 hours. But for a $10 game, that is well worth your money. I think just about everyone should check this game out. And I would recommend doing it sooner than later. You're going to want to experience. this while everybody else is. Yeah, it's a good point. Don't sleep on this one. Yeah. Yeah, totally agree. All right. Well, that wraps everything up for this episode. We'd like to say thank you to everyone for listening here through the end. As a reminder, please rate our show five stars. Go check out our social media presence. You can find us everywhere at video gamers pod and also

Patreon support options at multiplayer squad.com. If you sign up on there, you're going to get two bonus episodes every month called The Squadcast. Those are an absolute blast. You'll also get a shout out on the show and some Discord perks. And make sure to follow the pod. That way you don't miss any episodes. We do release several episodes every single week. And until you decide to join us next time, happy gaming.

All right, everybody, make sure you go out and get... Ryan? Ryan? Ryan. Ryan, are you there? Guys. Ryan, I think Ryan might be dead. I think he's dead.

Guys, Ron! Oh, he's not. Where are you? See you, everybody. See you, everybody.