Fame or Fortune

Would you rather risk your life for your job, or risk your life for fame. For some the choice is easy, but with each choice has its benefits and downsides. One or the other one can be more deadly than the other. Good thing it’s a game though. WIth a growing population, Lethal Company and Content Warning have been an inspiration for monster exploration games. With Content Warning following after Lethal Company, the genre has garnered a rating of 9/10 for Content Warning while Lethal Company has been nominated Steam Game of the Year in 2024. But one question is still being debated: Which one is better? 

Content Warning 

Content Warning is a game where you and a few friends (or yourself) go into a diving bell to explore an old world where monsters roam. Most of them are dangerous and should be avoided, and what do you do with that knowledge, try to record them to get famous on the internet. Everyday you wear your diving suit and bring your camera to record some scary monsters to get more views and try to get money. However death can make you lose money but gain you more views but if everyone dies the camera has to be retrieved. 

The game isn’t just nightmares and filming,; there are a few things that stand out that makes this game so enjoyable. The atmosphere makes the area look unique and gives a disparate black-and-white look that contrast the bright colors in the normal world. The sound effects that you hear when encountering a monster adds to the level of fear. The monsters look unique, terrifying, and always makes you wonder what you’ll face next. The creativity isn’t lacking either.

With the ability to type your face, you can make a bunch of silly faces to make your friends laugh and express yourself. Emotes and dances can also be used in your videos to make them funnier. Certain video equipment can also improve the quality of your video such as a boom mic to increase the audio. Content Warning doesn’t require a lot of money either, costing only $7.99. Lethal Company is a little more expensive costing, around $9.99. Being cheaper doesn’t mean the game is less fun. It has a rating of 9/10. 

However, with benefits come some downsides. The goal in Content Warning is hard to achieve every day (except for the first day), requiring more than a thousand views per day. The deadline is strict with only three days, so it can make reaching your goal difficult.  Although the recording time does get longer, that only helps so much especially when you can barely survive if you advance to harder monsters. There are limited tools that can help you fend off monsters and they aren’t really that helpful either. The goo ball slows them down but you’re most likely to trap yourself in it and it’s mainly used to help you record them. 

The shock stick is better but it’s not as good as it may seem, it’s very expensive, non lethal, and it can stun your allies. The monsters are everywhere so you’d want a safe spot right? Well you only have the diving bell, the monsters have complete free roam around the area. Lethal Company may have monsters that can come outside, but the difference in Content Warning is that all of the monsters are outside.   

Lethal Company 

Taking your crew to abandoned buildings in space to find scrap is your job in Lethal Company. Explore the land, make money, and watch out for dangerous monsters along the way. You give the scrap to Jeb to keep your job and to stay alive. Doesn’t sound very fun but the game is more interesting than it looks especially with the unique monsters, graphics, environments, and with the ability to play the game in VR it’s no wonder why so many people are playing Lethal Company and why it was nominated for Steam game of the year 2024. It came out before Content Warning and some people have compared it to Phasmophobia, another well loved horror game. But what makes Lethal Company so different from Phasmophobia? 

With the ability to choose where you can go it gives you the freedom of how you want to start off. Being able to choose your location also helps you avoid eclipses and hazards. Even if you’re lost the scanner helps you find your way around. Unlike Content Warning, not all monsters can leave the building (exception being ghost girl and mimic/masked). There are some monsters that can spawn only outside but usually around nighttime. Don’t feel like going inside the building but still wanna help out then stay in the ship and help from there! From inside the ship you can disable turrets and mines, open closed doors, and even save your teammates with a teleporter if you have one. You can even buy walkie talkies and directly communicate and monitor your crew and confirm that you don’t lose your scrap. 

Despite how much Lethal Company is loved there are still some flaws that hamper the game without ruining it. As previously mentioned you don’t lose your scrap if you make sure that someone stays alive. In that regard it’s important that someone gets back to the ship on time. If everyone dies for whatever reason all the scrap that you’ve collected will be lost. You have a deadline to meet so you don’t have much time. You can stay on the moon for a bit, but take too long and the ship will leave. If you also are the first one to die you can vote to have the ship leave early and sometimes that can ruin the run. The moons are different from each other and they can vary in weather conditions. The hazards can include lighting strikes, floods, and quicksand. These hazards make it difficult to navigate and can even slow you down while you’re trying to avoid monsters.  

Similarities 

They may be two different games with two different concepts but they still have a few things in common. These can range from being something positive or negative in the game. They both have a similar Phasmophobia, Backrooms type of game play with the way the microphones are used and the monsters. They both are cheap, costing around $10 with a lot of replay value, they are both 4 player compatible, and there are still updates being made and developed . With all the differences the similarities between them is the reason the two games are played and well loved. 

The games are great for people who love horror games. The sounds are terrifying, the atmosphere is dark, and dealing with certain monsters can make for an intense escape. I’ve played both of the games and they never failed to make me jump or tense up. The proximity chat (especially in Lethal Company) adds to the game and makes you feel like you’re in the environment. When you speak it sounds echoey, the further away you walk from your team your voice gets quieter, and when other players die they are unable to speak. The use of proximity chat is being used more often and is very well created in both of these games. If the game feels like it is not up to your standards there’s always something you can try and uninstall later. The use of mods make the game more interesting  and can spice up the difficulty. Lethal company and Content Warning both have a  VR mod. 

Along with the benefits, the games also have problems. We know that monsters can be outside or roam freely; they aren’t above invading your ship/ diving bell. Some monsters will enter your ship and attack you from there. For example the ghost girl (Lethal Company) can enter your ship, and snails(Content Warning) may enter your diving bell. If you fail to reach your required views or quota you have to start from the beginning. It wouldn’t be as bad if you can save before every successful point where you reach your goal but if you lose you start all the way over. This can be especially annoying if you get so far just to lose to something that looks so simple to avoid. With friends these games are very easy to play, however if you play with random people it can be difficult. For starters you don’t know them so you don’t know if they’re rude or if they want to ruin the run. With your friends you can easily work with them but with random people it’s hard to trust them. 

So which game is better? In my opinion neither of them, I think both games have something unique about them and both deserve the attention from their respective communities. If you have $20 I recommend you get both of them and have some friends to play them with. You’ll have a lot of laughs, a lot of screams, and a lot of fun.