INTRO
Welcome to the first review done by Board N' Byte (I promise these will get better over time). By now, I’m sure you’ve heard of Lethal Company; it’s one of the most popular games right now and for good reason. And if you haven’t played or heard of Lethal Company, Lethal Company is an early access survival horror game created by Zeekerss available on Steam for $9.99 USD or $12.99 CAD. In Lethal Company, you play as a worker for "The Company," a mysterious entity that you only interact with through pre-recorded messages over your ship's radio and an alien tentacle to which you sell your scrap to. In Lethal Company, your goal is to travel to disserted moons that are procedurally generated and collect as much scrap as you can to satisfy the quota given by "The Company." Upon doing so, you receive cash that can be spent in your ship's terminal to buy gear, decorations, and a few suits. However, it is not as easy as it sounds as along your mission to find scrap, you will encounter countless horrors that will do their best to murder you and prevent you from getting any scrap at all. In and of itself, this premise is surprisingly enjoyable.
Gameplay
Early on in the game, you get a feel for how the map and gameplay itself is as you really can only afford a simple flashlight, and then you're off running around exploring the moon. There isn't much of a hassle involved with gathering the scrap or finding it, which is nice. Plus, the thrill of running around the map with the worst flashlight you will ever use while you try to evade the legion of nightmares that surrounds you is something that seldom gets old. The game is constantly throwing unique situations at you thanks to the randomly generated map inside the buildings.
At the time of this review, there are 19 different enemies that will try to kill you. Some of them are killable; the rest cannot be killed. The enemies are also well designed due to many having different things that trigger them and do not trigger them. For example, an eyeless dog can only hear you, so if you crouch and don't speak, you can walk right past. While something like a coil head will endlessly follow you around, but if you look directly at it, it becomes paralyzed. This adds a nice element to the game, as most horror games remove the ability to deal with enemies at all let alone them all having different ways of being dealt with. Lethal Company allows you to feel just a little bit safer; even though it is difficult to kill some of the enemies, they are still killable. Now when it comes to killing the enemies, your choice of weapon is really only a shovel, as the other option is a shotgun that can only be obtained from killing the nutcracker enemy, which is a mission in and of itself. Pair the shovel with a zap gun, and you can make quick work of most enemies in the game. But that's also a drawback in and of itself. Often there isn't even a point to getting the zap gun as most enemies can just be avoided, and the ones that can't, you're unable to kill anyway.
The joy of this game comes from the ability to play in groups of up to 4 players (this is without mods, as with mods, you can play with 40+); nothing can beat a game that allows you to play with your friends in a fun environment. Listening to your friends shriek as you hear an eyeless dog devour them is something that never gets old. Being able to communicate with them in proximity chat or even over a walkie-talkie makes the game that much more realistic too. The core gameplay of the game really doesn't get tiresome until you've gone to every planet and experienced every enemy. But even then, Lethal Company still adds excitement as truly no encounter is the same.
As you finish the 3 days allotted to hit your profit quota, you return to the company, sell your scrap and use the money to buy items or travel to harder and farther moons. Often this ends up being a tradeoff, as the harder moons cost 550-700 for every time you fly to them. Each quota is allotted 3 days, and if you decided to go to the three harder moons during this time you would spend right around 1700. This creates a bit of a problem as you need to buy items, and if you die, you need to rebuy the items as well. It should be noted that if your whole team gets killed, you not only lose the items you held but also all scrap that was on your ship is lost. So you either play the game for so many hours that you have enough scrap to afford both, or you're stuck sacrificing one or the other. Your only other option is to fly to one of the harder moons and stay there for all 3 days, which saves you from paying to go to other moons, but if the weather effects change on the map, you can end up completely screwed and unable to play.
Many people also like to customize the look of their ship and their character but Lethal Company provides only 5 suits that need to be purchased and, for the most part, are just different colours of the default suit. On the other hand, customizing the ship, there are a few options but none of them really have any effect other than just sitting there. Now the best part of Lethal Company is the fact that it can be modded. With mods, you can change, add, or remove almost anything about the game. But, for the sake of this review, being able to mod the game will only count as one pro, and no actual mods will be considered in the rating.
PROS
Multiplayer coop focused
Chat is done very well
Enough content to satisfy most players
Quotas are easy enough to achieve
Difficulty is dependent on what moon you go to
Skill based game
Surprisingly enjoyable gameplay.
The game is still in early access.
There aren't many glitches or bugs in the vanilla game.
A good amount of enemy diversity
Enemies are unique
Easy to pick up
Ability to mod and has a massive modding community.
CONS
Not enough useful items and some are expensive for what they do.
Planets are expensive and need to be paid for each time you fly there.
Lose all scrap on team wipe, scrap values remain relatively low even as your quota skyrockets.
Terminal can be confusing for players to learn. Especially when trying to open doors.
No tutorial.
Planets and enemies eventually get stale.
Lore is lacklustre and nonexistent if you're not actively trying to find it.
Graphics are very pixelated (which in and of itself isn't bad), there are no video settings, and there is no customization aside from brightness.
Early Access.
The levelling system does nothing.
FINAL BREAKDOWN
As you can see, a game developed by one person and released in early access is bound to have its problems, but most of these issues are able to be solved in future updates and none are really that impactful anyway. Seldom will you ever find yourself truly bored with Lethal Company, and if you do, then you can try out different mods to spice up the game. The game excels at multiplayer and that's where it truly shines and really should mainly be played as such. Solo play is unfulfilling and tiresome, but I'm not sure anyone really buys it to play it solo, so it isn't a big enough deal to affect anything. One of the biggest things that brings the game down a bit for me is the fact that although the store has a fair share of items, it feels like you really won't ever need them. All you ever need is a pro flashlight, walkie talkie, and a shovel. The rest of the items almost feel useless. It makes the game a little repetitive, and the cost of some of the items makes it hard to justify them when travelling to the higher-tiered planets is 550-700 each time you travel to them unless you stay there, of course, but even that doesn't always work as the weather changes every time and if the planet is flooded, eclipsed, or even rainy it is exceptionally difficult to land there and survive. A lot of this does purely come down to difficulty, some players will love the difficulty that comes with all of the above, while others will not. All in all, the lack of content, and the lack of video settings are the biggest drawbacks of this game.
But with it being early access, all of these can be fixed in the future.
VERDICT
8/10
If you're looking to make your Lethal Company experience much more fun, you'll want to check out our How To Mod Lethal Company and Lethal Company Best Mods guides.
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