Lethal Company is slowly taking over the world as one of the biggest horror games of 2023. Developed by a single person, the game is advertised as being a party-based game where a crew of Company employees embark on exploring strange moons, hiding creatures stranger still in their many abandoned facilities.
But some players may want to up the thrill by going alone and wonder if Lethal Company is playable solo. We’re here to answer that.
Is Lethal Company playable solo?
Yes, you can play Lethal Company solo or with friends. The real question is, though, should you play Lethal Company solo? After all, the game is advertised as more geared toward parties of several players, with certain mods already out that increase the cap to 20 or even 32 players. When starting, it even asks you to name your crew, and we’ve seldom heard of one-man teams.
Lethal Company is best enjoyed with friends. It highly utilizes the proximity chat mechanic where you can only hear other players if they’re close enough to you. This adds a massive veil of mystery where you may separate from the rest of your crew and not know what fate befell them. Even with the addition of walkie-talkies for greater distances, proximity chat is a core feature of Lethal Company‘s gameplay loop and is entirely absent from solo play.
But that doesn’t mean the game cannot be enjoyed solo. It’s atmospheric. Very atmospheric. So much so that you can feel the pressure weighing heavily on your shoulders with each echoing step you take through long, winding corridors of metallic plates and rocky makeshift bridges.
The dark corners can hide God knows what, and the thrill of exploration is always present, whether with several players or a single explorer. So, the ultimate verdict is: it’s playable, but we recommend taking a few friends aboard.
Tips for playing solo in Lethal Company
If playing solo is really the way you want to go, you might want to pay attention to a few things when embarking alone on the quest to explore the abandoned moons of Lethal Company.
Ensure you have enough equipment
Playing solo means you cannot rely on others’ guidance or help in any scenario, making certain equipment crucial for each run. Always make sure you’re stocked up on flashlights and at least a shovel, if not stun grenades or other valuable consumables. The game is unforgiving, and the enemies will chase you down if you’re not careful enough. Most enemies in this game are quick and are very difficult to avoid and escape from. Not to mention that one enemy can only move if you’re not looking at it, and since you’re alone, you don’t have a chance of escaping with your bare hands.
Don’t carry too much loot
Taking several trips to the facilities and back is a much more tried and true strategy than hauling massive loot all at once. You won’t have the chance to distribute the weight across several players, and any significant haul will slow you down tremendously. Also, remember that if you die, you’ll lose all items gathered over all days (making that third day a real pain).
If you’re of bad luck and have had Forest Giants spawned near your ship or are being hunted by several enemies inside the facilities, you might only be able to carry one or two items with you. Add to that the weight of the shovel, and you’ll be as slow as a turtle, and your stamina will drain instantly, making any escape nearly impossible.
Stay away from Dine, Rend, and Titan
Playing solo will genuinely make the final three moons nearly unplayable. They are highly hazardous, labeled in the game as Hazard Level S, which is as high as it can go. Low visibility, perilous and powerful enemies, frequent enemy spawns, and so much more will make your game a frigid nightmare.
Exploring these moons alone will almost always mean certain death, especially if you’re trying to haul more items. On Dine and Rend, Forest Giants tend to spawn around your ship or close to the main entrance to the manors, and with heavy burdens, your slow movement will be your doom. In addition, these levels often spawn quick enemies that will make short work of you, leaving your corpse a reminder to those visiting the frozen wastes. So, if you don’t want to miss the best levels of the game and enjoy them fully, just call up some friends or join an online lobby.
Play with mods
You can also mod the game to be a little less punishing in some regards, such as the weight of the loot and how many items you can collect. A fantastic mod, MikesTweaks, gives you control over most of the game’s mechanics and allows you to tailor them to your liking. You can adjust the game’s general difficulty and design to be more favorable for solo play and make everything a lot more enjoyable. The default presets of the mod already do so much to balance the game out, but you can touch it up yourself as well.
At the end of the day, just play online
If mustering up three more people for a proper party in Lethal Company isn’t an option, you can choose to play online and find others who are in a similar situation. Lethal Company was clearly designed to be played with multiple players and not to be enjoyed alone, with so many design choices and mechanics that are heavily punishing for a single player or even a party of two.
When you pay the quota a couple of times, it gets so tremendously high that a single player could never collect that much scrap and live to tell the tale, which indicates that the game is meant for several people. Or, at the very least, the late game is, and it’s perhaps the most fun and dangerous part of the whole Lethal Company experience.
