Lethal Company becomes one of Steam’s most popular games amid viral success

Lethal Company is an indie horror game that takes full advantage of the chaotic hilarity co-op multiplayer games can bring, and its quickly risen to over 100k concurrent players.

Though rare, there are a select few indie multiplayer titles that have gameplay innovative enough to make them become viral hits. BattleBit Remastered and Among Us are great examples of indie games that have content creators and passionate players do the brunt of the marketing for them.

And it seems that Lethal Company is the next multiplayer title to see widespread success after going viral on social media, with videos of players mishaps and shenanigans being spread all across Twitter and YouTube. It’s no surprise that over 100,000 players wanted to get in on the fun.

The young developer took to Twitter and celebrated his achievement, and he’s looking forward to expanding upon Lethal Company’s incredibly successful formula.

Lethal Company takes Steam charts by storm

With over 97% of Lethal Company’s over 18,000 Steam reviews being positive, players clearly love what developer Zeekerss put together. It’s a deliberately simple horror game that finds complexity in the ways players interact with each other and the world around them, making for a game that creates unforgettable scenarios and interactions with friends.

Players are tasked with exploring randomly generated levels to find enough scrap metal, junk, and knick-knacks to sell for their profit quota. Finding enough stuff to profit will keep the player alive, but coming in beneath that quota leads to death.

The high-stakes dash for loot combined with unique in-game tools and a well-implemented proximity chat have created countless viral moments within the game despite it being less than a month old.

Whether you’re in the action with your crewmates or observing from afar, Lethal Company maintains enough tension to be a genuinely scary horror experience while being light-hearted and comedic enough in presentation to be approachable for those who aren’t typically into horror.

The game really hit critical mass after MoistCr1TiKaL (aka Charlie) played it with Wendigoon and a few other friends on stream.

This stream and Charlie’s subsequent YouTube video highlighting some of their best moments helped carry this game to even further heights as more and more players hop in to experience the game for themselves.

Dev Zeekerss was blown away by the immense support for the game. A week after the game’s launch, they were celebrating 1000 reviews. Now it’s at 18000 and counting with over 100K concurrent players.

For reference, Apex Legends has a 24 hour peak of 438k at the time of writing, while Rainbow 6 Siege has a 24 hour peak of 78k. In less than a month, this small indie project has beaten out a long-standing live-service game and become one of Steam’s most popular games. At the time of writing, it’s ranked 12th out of all games on Steam for its 24 hour peak.

While it still doesn’t hold a candle to Counter-Strike 2‘s immense player count, it’s impossible to deny Lethal Company’s meteoric rise from a relatively obscure indie title to one of the most played games on Steam.