HomeFeaturesLethal Company
Lethal Company gets worse as you get betterWhy being dumb is good, actually
Why being dumb is good, actually
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Zeekerss
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Zeekerss
So far, my main problem withLethal Company– this month’sRPS Game Clubgame – is that I’m getting better at it. I’m more efficient at clearing up scrap, less prone to fear-spasming inside out when amonsterattacks, and have become wise to most of the haunted houses’ deadliest tricks. All of these, it turns out, make Lethal Company a worse game.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Zeekerss
I won’t speak for my colleagues (especially Edwin, poor bloke) but personally I feel like the wide-eyed and curious James of those early runs is dead, and not just at the tendrils of some low-poly shadow creature. Now, you see, I actually know what I’m doing. I might still get lost in the occasional pitch black corridor network but otherwise, very little else seems to go wrong with me, now that I know the maps, the sound cues, therules. Monster AI remains impressively diverse for a game of this scope but ever since I read up on their coded behaviours, I can mostly avoid them with about as much fear as sidestepping a Roomba. Get in, get scrap, get out. That’s the job, and I’ve passed my probation.
That’s all well and good if you only perceive videogames in terms of victories and rewards, but I’ve definitely lost much of what raised my heartbeat so much in those disastrous early ventures. Worse, I’ve started replacing it with a mere workmanlike duty to gather up rubbish, intentionally dodging the dangers that had made previous sessions so memorable. It’s not just the horror that fades away, either: the physical comedy of Lethal Company, so genuinely hilarious to the unfamiliar, loses its punch as well. The first time you watch your last living friend run from a forest kaiju, bolt upright like a terrified, sprinting pencil, it’s desperately funny. Within a couple of weeks it will probably be a joke you’ve heard nine times before, even with the lack of an actual script.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Zeekerss
All that said, I do think there are simply more opportunities for laughs than for scares, so the humour shouldn’t dry up at quite the same rate. Lord knows I’m still jumping off the dropship straight into pools of quicksand. But not unlike howDarktide’s earliest missions have a unique flavour that’s eventually lost, I am worried that my best days with Lethal Company – when everything was horrible yet wondrous, and I’d fail with a smile on my face – have already passed.
Maybe, then, a mentality change is all I need? Rather than play Lethal Company as a real company man, I should stop figuring out how to optimise everything, stop reading the wiki, and train my brain to essentially cease absorbing any further information that could be used to play “better.” Just become an orange and kind of shitty Peter Pan, never to grow or change, but living happily in a world where being eaten stays fresh and funny forever.
