An $8 cooperative horror game is rocketing up Steam’s top sellers list: ‘Never occurred to me Lethal Company was missing physics until I played this’
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‘Lethal Company clone’ is one of the three remaining genres that now encompass the entirety of Steam, the other two being ‘Vampire Survivors clone’ and ‘hentai’. Most of these games briefly clog up the new releases tab before being replaced by yet more cooperative, autobattling horror porn (the first person who develops that game will make a squillion bucks). Yet occasionally, one sticks the landing. Such is the case with REPO, a game about repossessing items from creepy buildings that, at the time of writing, is selling more copies than Civilization 7.
Looking at REPO, it isn’t hard to see why. It takes the monster-chewed bones of Lethal Company, expands the max player count from four to six, and adds two differentiating features. First, it casts players as googly-eyed, primary coloured pedal bins resembling the storybots from Netflix’s Sesame Street knockoff Ask the Storybots, complete with mouths that flap like a muppet’s whenever the player speaks over voice chat. Second, it imbues the entire experience with wibbly-wobbly physics.
Every object in the game can be lifted with a telekinetic beam. But each object also has a different weight value, so larger objects need to be lifted by multiple players—similar to top-down cooperative game Moving Out. Amusingly, players can also lift each other, which can be used to access new areas, or, as demonstrated in the above trailer by the group dunking one player into a toilet, for hijinks.
There’s one other thing that REPO does differently from Lethal Company. When players are spotted by one of the monsters lurking around, players can try to hide from it, squashing their bodies right down so they can creep under tables or other obstacles. This adds a bit more tension and back-and-forth to player escapades.
All of this had led to REPO quickly garnering an ‘Overwhelmingly Positive’ rating on Steam from almost 2,000 reviews. “Never occurred to me Lethal Company was missing physics until I played this game,” writes Steam user eternalreflect, adding its “surprising how much fun you can have throwing around objects—or being thrown yourself.” User Polaris, meanwhile, praises REPO’s more freewheeling approach to cooperative horror action. “I personally love the fact that there really isn’t a time limit when you’re in the mission, you can explore and take as much time as you need.”
It’s also worth noting that REPO is an early access game, with developer semiwork stating it expects to release the final version in “around 6 to 12 months.” While the studio doesn’t detail its exact plans for the early access period, merely stating it wants to “work with the community to make this game the best it can be”, it points out REPO is already “perfectly playable” and “fleshed out” with three worlds, 19 enemies, 29 equipment items and eight player upgrades.
REPO is available now. The RRP is £8.50/$10, though it’s currently running a 20% launch discount.
