honestly i'm super surprised the eclipsed moon did not get a mention the pianos are completely gone, replaced by an almost revolting ringing that has the biggest "you really never should have come here" message a sound has ever given imho it's terrifying stuff
To be fair, the Eclipsed Moon theme is difficult to record in peace without immediately being torn to shreds. And to be honest, i cannot blame him for not even having heard it yet, because who the fuck would go to an eclipsed moon lmao
My first time playing lethal company, a friend jokingly said to run off into the desert, and I could. I did. I spent the entire game wandering through dunes, without any means of direction, joking out loud at first but then just. Lonely. I couldn't make it back if I wanted to. The music slowly droned as I was stuck in a world I literally knew nothing about. Fantastic introduction
Something I love about the Jester is that even if you've never encountered it before, all you'll do is question it just standing around, but the moment it begins playing you KNOW something absolutely terrible is about to happen and it causes people to be terrified anyway.
Especially if everyone decides to venture deeper into the building the main entrance and fire exit being so far away you have 2 options 1. Run with the loot and hope to make it or 2. Drop everything and ABSOLUTELY RUN FOR IT!
It's because it's a jack-in-the-box. We were all exposed to one as children. It's a classic toy and is meant to startle us, so it's hardcoded to understand something is coming and it's going to be frightening. Even if it popped open and confetti burst out, we would still be anxious every time, just as we are with real jack-in-the-boxes, despite knowing that all that happens is a doll head of some sort is going to pop out and won't hurt us. And we know there's a time limit too, because that's how those work, but we forget to count, so even that's terrifying. The wait, anticipation, trepidation.
@@nachgebenThis is part of why love the "Evil Jack-in-the-box of pain and horror" trope so much. They take advantage of the fact that you KNOW something will come out and that it's going to be terrible to instill anxiety within you. The distinct tune of Pop Goes the Weasel ends up becoming the sound of approaching peril that immediately strikes fear into your heart.
The pitter patter of a coilhead's footsteps followed by the doorstopper like sound after you look at them is pure gold. Those enemies do an amazing job at terrifying me
It's such a great design because it fixes the one thing missing from SCP 173 and weeping angels, a sense of speed. You don't get a sense for how fast weeping angels are moving, they just seem to teleport whenever you look away. But simply adding that spring noise when they stop makes them feel like they're ready to pounce the instant you turn your head. They feel way more dangerous because of that too. It also serves a great gameplay purpose by telling you when a coil head has stopped moving, even if you can't see it or you aren't the one looking at it.
Normally coilheads don't scare me but when I'm lost in the tunnel network of the facility, it's dark, and I can't look where I'm stepping as I walk backwards, I jump EVERY time I hear that stopping sound even though I expect it each time because I just turned a corner so obviously the coilhead is going to start moving and then go back into my vision.
Man, your analysis about childhood being so integral to the theming of the game has really made me look at the whole thing in a new perspective. Almost like a child’s interpretation of what a job might be in the future. Collecting toys from moons filled with boogeymen and monsters.
Also look at all of the creatures. They all look like kids drawings. The eyeless dogs just look like how a kid might draw a scary dog. Just a pacman head with teeth. Same with baboonhawk and forest guardian.
@@Zarzar22Add onto that with the fact that Forest Guardians are stated to almost act like toddlers since the reason why they pick up and eat the player is out of curiosity
I never noticed this underlying theme of childhood memories until it was mentioned in this video. All those hours of playtime and only now I realise! I was flabbergasted! And indeed with that in mind, as the others have mentioned, the monsters' appearance seems all the more... intentional. The genius of Lethal Company goes deeper and deeper.
Most horror games are usually a lot better solo if you truly want to experience fear but lethal company goes too far. If you're used to playing with people and then jump in solo the sense on loneliness and tension is overwhelming. There's no other goofy player model to laugh at, no one elses funny panicked screams just emptiness. Really sells the abandoned feeling the planets try to give off.
Being a solo player (my friends moved on from it, I still it play it) it took a lot of getting used to solo and even still the atmosphere, ambiance and sound track still scares me.
What I love about the atmosphere of Lethal Company is the hidden gamestat which is pretty realistic to the player the insanity stat when you're in the facility, your insanity stat increases, both you and your character are getting insane when you talk with friends, you get more sane, both you and your character are being comforted when you find loot over 150 worth, you get more sane, both you and your character forget your troubles when you see a dead body, you go more insane, both you and your character are stressing out when a monster engages you, you go more insane, both you and your character are getting scared when you look behind you a lot, you go more insane, both you and your character are getting paranoid the parallel of you and your character sharing emotions, truly makes the atmosphere getting real and god forbid when you get haunted
Also, when you are alone for too long, or being around a dead body for too long, makes your character go insane, and sometimes it causes you to hear a creepy laugh.
@@aierop8434 Basically, if a ghost girl spawns, it chooses the most paranoid player (paranoid players don't increase the spawn chance of ghost girls, its just that ghost girls choose the most vulnerable, or paranoid target) It also makes you hear the spooky ambiance sounds, and the more paranoid you are, the spookier it gets. Honestly, its wonderfully terrifying the way it is set up, because if you don't know about the mechanic, you get a fear of working deep inside the facility by yourself because you hear sus sounds, and if you do know what paranoia is you still hate the scary sounds because that legitimately means that the ghost girl is going to be after you sooner or later if she is around, which give a legit reason to not like the spooky sounds
where did you get that your insanity goes down when you look around a lot or carrying too much loot? Or seeing dead bodies or encountering monsters? None of those have anything to do with it. And being outside causes your insanity to drain slower.
i think its so important that three of the most dangerous enemies produce music (jester and nutcracker, ghost girl). it gives contrast to the goofy fun of the store dropship and the boombox. outside of the facility, the music isn't scary. inside the facility, it's terrifying.
if anyone's wondering what the three audios are(maybe cuz they havent watched the video), it's the jester when he starts cranking and playing a more terrifying remix of "Pop goes the weasel", and for the nutcracker, if he goes at a certain hp, he goes into rage mode and starts playing marching music, and the ghost girl, when spotted, starts playing bells in the background, indicating your time has come.
these are def not the most dangerous, jester is more annoying, forcing you to leave the building, nutcracker is just straight up easy to get around and avoid, and ghost girl is only dangerous if you don’t know what to do
@@coal1235 "only dangerous if you don't know what to do" describes literally every enemy in the game. they all have specific counters and predictable behaviours that can give you an advantage if you know how they work
@@coal1235 I'd argue ghost girl is pretty much a run killer, if you're haunted you're doomed to stand behind a wall so she doesn't spawn or death, so yeah she is very dangerous and nearly impossible to avoid without killing your productivity, Jester is really dangerous, if you find yourself in a position where another monster blocks the exit, or lost in the maze you are pretty much doomed. Nutcracker is really the only one i'd agree
Zeekers(the Dev.) knows how to make such good horror chase and ambience music. The Jesters horrifying music when it pops and combined with its loud footsteps is what really terrifies everyone who hasn't leave the building. and this creative style of music is seen from his previous games especially "It Steals" where the footsteps or screams of the monster is combined with its chase music plus its amazing AI makes the game's chase sequence extremely terrifying you should check it out sometime
i remember seeing it steals a year ago, and thinking the dev that made it had so much potential if they just made a game with more purpose, turns out i was right ig
i can’t believe how you didn’t talk about the whole intro “great asset to the company- great- great asset- to the company…” bit at all! it sets the tone of the game perfectly & no one gives it enough credit
i have nearly fifty hours in the game, and my record quota is 6000~… but weirdly enough, in my learning of the game and in my early hours, i don’t remember hearing a single song or melody that wasn’t an ambient noise. then, somewhere around my 40th hour, i walked out of a fire exit narrowly escaping imminent death, and the simplistic but beautiful exterior music blessed my ears. it was truly like a breath of fresh air in more way than one. i still don’t know if all the time i was tuning out the music, or if it wasn’t there for all those hours. lethal company is already a near perfect game, and it has so much potential it’s unbelievable. i can’t wait to see what else the developers throw at us.
The outside soundtrack reminded me of a fusion between BOTW and Minecraft. And it somehow makes me feel calm. Like the game is telling don’t worry there are no monsters around, but that also means there are no friends either. You are the sole survivor, keep surviving
I love Zeekerss music design. They're the only game soundtrack I've EVER bought with my own money, and that was for one of their other titles, The Upturned. There was one specific chase beat in that game which had me hooked, and I instantly clicked into buying the soundtrack. Everything about The Upturned is such a good showcase of the dev's talents imo, from the chaotic, comedy horror; the fun, cute, but sometimes terrifying character designs; and the catchy as hell music and sound design. Ironically, when Lethal Company first started getting big, I didn't pay much attention to it. Until youtube autoplayed a video of one of my subsrcibed playing it. I was like "hm" when I first heard the funky beats of "great great asset", but the second the supply pod dropped and the tune started playing, I KNEW it had to be Zeekerrs. Instantly ran to stream and, lo and behold, it was. You don't get someone recognisable for their game music very often.
I had the fortune of already knowing about him through It Steals and to see the trailer for Lethal Company and wait in anticipation until it dropped. Let me just say, it was so strange to see the game just blow up in popularity when initially, Zeekerss was a relatively obscure dev that I wouldn't expect most to know about. Same thing happened with TADC too. It feels almost surreal.
Hey, I know this is totally random but watching your videos has educated me a lot on the deeper meanings behind pieces of media and on analysis in general. I know this is a bit of a long shot, but have you ever heard of the Faith trilogy. It's like an 8bit single player game series. I've seen and played a bit of it but always felt like I was missing something deeper and haven't been able to find much on it. I feel like it would make a phenomenal video if you ever needed an idea.
I never really considered the impact that lethal company’s audio design had on the over game experience and ambiance, but now I realize it would not be half as scary or interesting without the games off putting sound effects and spooky music. Thank you for another fantastic video.
The ghost girl honestly reminds me alot of Death from Puss in Boots. Just how even with your teammates being there, you cant make out what they are saying anymore, you hear the sound, you cant take your focus off of the girl, and for the new player, they'll freak out.
i didnt even think to consider this games link to childhood, but as soon as you said it, it made so much sense. this is a goated video, thank you for making it
I think you've wonderfully put to words the exact feeling that I get when I leave my team during a game. Everybody is going back to the ship to put their scrap away, and I'm the fourth, with no scrap yet, and still a lot of time to gather more. Going back into the interior alone, and even just hearing the footsteps of my 3 team members walk away to the ship sends the game into a completely different genre. I'm alone, I'm vulnerable, and the only thing having a walkie-talkie will do is let me tell my team I am doomed in the very likely event that I run into something dangerous. And they'll be left to wonder what happened to me when they come back into the interior, with no response on the radio, up until the point they either find my body or teleport it onto the ship, that lightheartedness of multiplayer suddenly interrupted by one of two dilemmas: "Where is my teammate?..." Or "What killed my teammate?..."
Im surprised you didn't mention the music that plays on an eclipsed moon. It's a kinda campy halloween-y tune, but I think it does a great job of adding a sense of danger to the game. Then again, you cam only hear it if you and your friends actually shut the fuvk up like you're supposed to lol
@@fortcollinsproductions The Eclipsed Moons really give you an heavy atmosphere, downright telling you that coming here wasnt a good idea. Not only that but the Company Building also has its own piano track!
as someone who solos often, the world feels so dead, just as intended. When I do play in public, I notice someone enters the fire exit, and never comes out, if you're not on the radar, there is this mysteries feel, and when you hit those realizations the soundtrack makes it a far more worrying realization
“It doesn’t even show you its full complexity when you’re first playing the game. It expects you to become brave, or careless enough to find its secrets.” You have easily summarized my personal favorite genre of games in a way that I never could. These games are filled to the brim with story, culture, environment, ambience, conflict-very complex world building. Yet they give the player complete agency, with no real goals, missions, tasks, or quests to guide them through its lore. You are left on your own to figure it out. Maybe you already have a role in the world, but it is still your decision if you keep it or find your own purpose instead. A life simulator in a world unknown to you. You are a child again with unbounded curiosity and wonder, and the world you play in is a jungle gym waiting for you to explore.
Lethal company was a surprise to me, I wasn't expecting it to have such a cool soundtrack, I remember screaming for everyone to stop talking so I could hear the exterior soundtrack the first time it played, pretty cool stuff.
My first time going to one of the Hard moons, 85-Rend, one of my friends had earlier on this play-through read the Jester's description in the Bestiary: Get out of there before it goes APE!! You can't hide from it, just evacuate. THERE'S NO FREAKING SCIENTIFIC RECORD! good luck, you know as much as us. we just call it the jester. We took it as "this entity might be so dangerous that we have to get away from the moon we're on if we come across it". We knew that the Jester had a decent chance to spawn on Rend, so we decided that only two of us were going to enter the manor: me and one of my friends. Also, this was our first time on a Hard moon, so we didn't know about the snowy ambience, it felt novel, although threatening. It didn't take long to find the Jester, it walked into the main hall about a minute in... We didn't know what it looked like, so we scanned it and it read "Jester". About to shit ourselves we get out, run back to the ship and consider leaving the place, but, we had noticed that it started winding itself up. This made us curious, so I decided that I'd go back in and see what it'd do. I went back in, and there it was, in the main hall staring at me. It started winding, and I just watched it whilst stressing to my friends on a walkie-talkie about how nervously terrifying this was. When the winding was reaching it's end, I had ran up to the left balcony in the main hall. It started chasing me, running up the stairs, and me, being terrified as I was, I jumped down and somehow made it out of the manor. I also got back to the ship, and we were contemplating the horror of this enemy.
Really appreciate being featured in the video! Just a side note I didn’t do the sound design for the game but the sound design in the video that’s featured is all mine. Really appreciate the feature 😊
Lethal Company music is best described as nostalgic discordance, where you're reminiscing about a better time in your life under dire circumstances. You know you're on a tight leash, and the consequences of failure are just as bad as death, but there's reminders of your past that you think of and look back on, yearning for better days.
I love the use of juxtaposition in this game. It's central to just about every aspect of it, both internally with it's mix of horror and comedy, and the musical direction you talked about, but also in its implied themes. It fits in with the contradiction of our generations exhausted attempts to still see beauty in a world that continuously loses its shine to our hands, our ironic laughter in the face of our self imposed apocalypse. This game so perfectly encapsulates the confusion of just _being_ in the world today. Those moments when you're outside, walking back towards the fire door and your possible, eventually certain death just to find one more piece of scrap. The piano plays as the background music of the question, _"why am I still doing this?"_
Bro, this essay is the freshest one in a couple of months for me. When you brought up the childhood topic, my eyebrow legit flew up faster than a rocket. Great job, you’ve really said something new
This is an extremely well crafted video! I find the eclipsed audio to be especially eerie as well, kind of warning us that we aren't supposed to be there.
Relating to childhood horrors. The coilhead is a mix of two. When I was younger I remember reading about SCP-173, the de facto original and very first SCP. The fact that it moves really, really fast when you aren't looking at it combined with it's instantaneous stop the moment someone looks at it. A door stopper, slinky, springs etc are all fun things I played with when I was little. The sudden stopping reminds many people of a door stopper- again, something that's a mi of a utility and a "toy". The sound it makes. The pitter patter of feet. It all goes together to subconsciously remind you of your when times were less complicated. But now you have to literally get a move on without losing track of what's important.
@@devlovemongoose Heck yeah. I guess another layer to it aside from no arms murder slinky head man is kinda going back to walking around your home barefoot and then stopping the moment someone sees you, not expecting them. (Gonna add another reply under mine in a moment bunker spiders!)
On bunker spiders and some others. Along with literally every monster in the game, they're unreasonably large. The Snare Flea and Mantecoil are the only "small" creatures. Bunker Spiders kinda remind me of how BIG of an issue spiders are as a kid. Bunch of legs, uncaring, "don't mess with it's web". The only thing out of the childhood phrases I remember being false is "It's more scared of you than you are of it". First off: A: It's a spider, I wouldn't say they have even lizard brain. "fear" isn't a thing (me being silly) B: Who are you, a human, to tell me, also a human that a spider- not a human- is more afraid of the human? I don't have arachnophobia, but I do have a degree of aversion towards them. The sound of the spider seems about as straight forward as it can get. Sticky, heavy and thumpy. Sticky because that's the general idea of how bug feet work. Heavy because... It's huge. And thumpy because... It's legs are also huge. And makes a big noise. I love the design of the spiders because they're really simple but have just enough to activate the "lizard brain" part for me to recognize danger. Hoarding Bugs have a similar sound design philosophy but relatively smaller/more compact. That plus the sound of them flying when aggressive. This one I honestly am not entirely sure where the "twist childhood iconography into horror" stems from? Possibly hoarders in general? Like "don't take their stuff. They're very passionate about the stuff they're newer going to use again". Thumpers (Halves) are a fun one. As a kid, I vividly remember being afraid of large public swimming pools because I was afraid of sharks (which apparently is exactly what thumpers are. Which. What.) Along with the completely disconnected concern of sharks finding their home in fine, chlorinated water. An environment that is simply not meant for them. A bunker let alone a mansion is nowhere I would ever associate where a shark would be in real life. It's exactly proportionate to how nonsensical a shark in a pool would be. Of course the lore expands on it being genetically modified. Regardless. It seems "arbitrary" (in a good way) that a shark would be selected instead to be "gene modified" instead of- say - a bear or a lion- or a wolf for that matter. Them being the sighted counterpart to the Eyeless Dog is great as well. It's sounds are very interesting because it's clear, concise and jarring. They were the first enemy that I'd encountered in the game and they're the first enemy whose sounds I learned the quickest. As far as sounds to recall from my life from when i was younger? I honestly couldn't say for sure. Maybe how when someone is really angry and they stomp around? Again. Something I heard but never really was directly experienced. Snare Fleas make great sense. Many people have or have had dogs. You hear about fleas a ton so you're worrying about it all the while. As far as sounds? No clue. Just something to recognize. Spore Lizards... I wan gonna say I'm stumped about this one.... I do have an idea. It's just. A rattlesnake. But like. It can fart and has legs. I'm... Gonna go sleep now. Thank you for coming to my ted talk.
@@1-800-YLFEN-NAIEThumpers aren't actually gene-modified. Most alien life in Lethal Company were creatures from Earth presumably seeded on these foreign moons by a large vessel called The Boat (sort of like Noah's Ark honestly). They then started to rapidly adapt to their new environment to become the strange beasts we know today.
Another game I praise heavily for it's soundtrack is Boneworks. The soundtrack does a great job at creating atmosphere to the world you are in and perfectly manipulates and recontextualizes the game's main motif, and this combined with the games synth heavy music design greatly compliments the environments you are in and always reminds you of where you are, a computer generated simulation from the 90s. I highly recommend listening to its soundtrack, but I personally think its better to experience it for yourself in-game. I will never forget hearing the games main melody replayed after the ending in a sad and more hopeful light
This has become one of my favorite videos to revisit in such a strange yet comforting observation of lethal company. I hope a second video comes in the near future
One thing I think adds to the atmosphere of the interior more than anything is the paranoia ambience. The terror of being alone in this game slowly creeps up on you as you realize you drifted away from your friends, and then hearing some strange sounds, a school alarm bell, or a distant “hey” it’s hard to tell if you’re alone anymore…
The way you describe Lethal Company OST and its ambiance was nothing but wonderful. I never thought either Lethal Company wouldn't grow on me but it as it slowly went from 80 hours on record to now almost 210 hours, running either with friends or solo it never gets old. As the monsters, moons or items have so much stuff to them. Subscribe to you and can't wait to see more of your work
this was such a fun and interesting listen! I can't way to listen out for more of the piano next session! also both of your pronunciations of ambiance were correct
You mentioned every time of day, except the scariest... Midnight. When that smiling skull pops up and the music completely ends its softer tone... you're completely alone and there are enemies around you, your equipment has died and so have all of your buddies, it truly gets a chill up my spine. "You really need to get to the ship" it almost says.
I’m honestly obsessed with this video. The way you used the background music to compliment your own voice, and the way you perfectly explain everything is just so relaxing and is like a documentary. Keep up the good work! ❤
Your first encounter with the ghost girl was fantastic. Everything it was designed to be and more. Me & my friends had been spoiled on it so we didn't really get that experience, but I'm so glad you did
I feel like the game's soundtrack is trying, in some way, to tell you a story, something about the situation of this strange universe, something you can barely notice when playing with friends, but only when you're all alone. You're working on moons, that were once turned into a place with possibilities, turned into a land of death and desolation, now dominated by the creatures you encounter. All the scrap you find goes to a mysterious company, holding something... we don't know at all. The soundtrack at 5:50 is definitely my favorite, it almost feels like it's telling you that our existence, as we know, is fading away, being dominated by something bigger that we could ever imagine, something incomprehensible to the human mind, the end for us is near... yet we still get a little glimpse of peace, knowing that there's still time for us. Maybe... we're the last hope humanity, or whatever it is, has...
here i was expecting some sort of analysis about the boombox music (was especially looking forward to what you had to say about track 1) but this was actually really well thought out. i hadn't thought about the childhood theme at all and now it's got me thinking
Using the inverse teleporter for the first time was delightfully terrifying. Going from the sound of my laughing friends wishing me luck as I hype myself doing the dance emote. To the sudden silence and darkness knowing I am alone and I don't know how to get out. Especially on higher level rooms where enemies can spawn at any time. By the time I got out I felt like a shaking mess with only a soda can and sheet metal to show for.
Another powerful and amazing video. I've never played Lethal Company and only ever heard about it. its seemed so simple and alike a Phasmaphobia knock off, so i wondered what lethal company was and why everyone is obsessed with playing it. The detail in the placement of the music never occurred to me. I felt the fear and dread as i watched. I felt the odd beauty you mentioned. your voice and tone of speaking also helped the experience XD i dont know, theres just a thoughtful slide to your voice that perfect for video essays
glad to see some love to the ever present unscene part of the game. the first time i heard that track that's in 1:44 the game felt like it all came together
the outside music played in this reminds me of the music for the Rusty Lake/Cube Escape series. strong recommend if anyone wants to listen to more of this kind of music.
this was an incredible video essay/documentary! everything you touched upon are many of the reasons why i love this game! after playing over 100 hours solo and 100 hours coop, i will say that you are very correct that the game becomes very eerie yet serene once you no longer hear laughter, once you no longer hear screams, once you are alone. the music outside gives me such an odd feeling that you described very well, much better than i ever could. what you also discussed about becoming braver to venture further into the facility and for much longer into the day is also a very nice touch, since it is indeed that player growth that lets us better appreciate every aspect the game offers to us (or despise getting unlucky with monsters that have opposite counters). the narrative you started building regarding the nostalgia of childhood being contrasted by the fear of death is wonderful! i think it ties in very well with the atmosphere of the game: you are delving into these abandoned facilities, yet you never learn the reasons why these places abandoned. what happened to the inhabitants? are the monsters inside or outside the culprits? where do these scrap items come from? who used to live and work here? i really enjoyed watching this, and i can't wait to see what other videos you have in store for us!
I love the harmonies chosen for the “ice cream truck” song. It’s a familiar tune, but the underlying harmonies are just off enough to give it a crunchy and strange sound. Something familiar, but wrong.
The most amazing part is that, the game was likely developed almost entirely alone. It's so quiet that if you're talking you can't hear it, if others are talking it's hard to hear, and if nobody is around, you hear everything. When playing alone, you almost want to turn off all the breakers just to hear even if it means you can't see. The whirr of the fans is so loud it can cause you to get lost as you spiral up or down a flight of stairs in a hurry. The bubbling of steam pouring through a busted pipe not only blinds you but deafens you to even the high pitch screeching of mines. The meaty grind of a thumpers torso as it drags itself around is even worse, from so far away you know not to approach that direction. Outside, a giant or a worm thud and gurgle, a warning to anything that comes near because once they find you, it's over. You can sprint as fast as you can, but it's purely luck if you survive. Eyeless dogs give little sound cues and just stalk in the darkness hoping to be unnoticed so that their prey makes a single mistake. But what's even better, is that no beast can both see and hear. The only exception being the jester which is both deaf and blind, but always knows you're they're. And every single one is a play on a child's game, hide and seek, red light green light, chase and tag, cops and robbers, but all with different objectives and failures than what you're familar with. The only exception there being the coil head, at least as far as I'm aware. Then Jeb, the permanently upset "company." The one that always knows what's happening and never intervenes because it's "employees" can't hurt it. The uncarring god and it's creations, or the absent parent and it's children. They won't hesitate to remove a player from the game if they're too loud, but they don't care if it's them or something they're holding. "The company", a building with no land or inhabitants, but rather a constantly raining floodscape, coated in "water" where if you fall in, the act alone will kill you. And yet, nobody remembers how they got aboard in the first place. They remember everything before, but that's all. Nobody knows where everyone else on the planet's went, mansions, vast underground laboratories, small huts, warehouses, and watertowers, as well as summaries in the terminal, all tell of a once industrial society thriving. Yet there's nobody, but you.
im so glad someone talked about the music in lethal company. my favorite ambient track is Ambience 2, the song played at 5:50. there's a tone of sadness with hints of serene comfort. these planets are almost familiar, yet they're still alien. it's walking through the environments. i think the music that is present here is for those who want to listen; like you said, you're usually with others, laughing and talking while the soundtrack quietly lingers in the background. for the careful ear.
This video finally inspired me to get to making my own video essay. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, and I’m really glad you managed to motivate me :)
Incredible video, the presentation of the Childhood Motif is so obvious yet I never realized it myself. It really makes the game more immersive now that I’ve learned this.
My introduction to this work of art was terrific. As me and my friend played it for the first time, we flew to experimentation and jumped right into the facility expecting monsters everywhere, but it was quiet, too quiet… any slight sound can be horrifying in a situation such as that, we didnt encounter any dangers that day, but it’s not about what you see, it’s about the fact that you know something’s in there, something… watching you
The recent update added another entity who plays music, the barber. Also the butlers I believe have music with them when they go ape shit with a knife.
As an avid Left for Dead 2 player, I felt like I took an especially close notice to Lethal Company's audio cues. It's truly amazing and you did a great job articulating it here. Thanks!
As you walk through the desolate halls of the facility, the eerie silence is only broken by the hissing of pipes and the echoing of your footsteps. The dim lighting that flickers on at the intersections is the only source of comfort in the otherwise suffocating darkness. However, as you turn a corner, you find yourself in an abrupt dead end, the darkness closing in around you. Just as you realize your mistake, you see a pair of white, glowing eyes staring back at you from the shadows. The creature growls menacingly before quickly retreating into the darkness, leaving you frozen in terror. It's impossible to know how long it had been following you, but the realization that you're not alone in these halls is bone-chilling.
4:07 you actually made me spit out my water there, I thought you were gonna get killed by a bracken or coil head, or spider. The Snare flea was literally the one thing I wasn’t expecting
Those times when I got lost heading into the complex and only had the piano with me- feeling almost peaceful, but still unnerved- that’s something special.
Another perfect example of ambiance, applying to the game in a good way. Minecraft we can all agree when we hear those Minecraft cave sounds playing while we're deep in the mines looking for diamonds. It's the most scary thing in the fucking world. I mean, even when we're not the game for diamonds. And we're just digging dirt to build our new plateau to build a new base. It's still terrifying yet. It's one that we still keep coming back to.
I played Lethal company for the first time recently and joined a server with little kids that were confused on what to do. My scanning couldn't detect the main entrance so I just wandered until I could see a ladder. When I did, the music kicked in, extremely subtle and kind of sad. It Not really sad to the point that you know the feeling, but the odd type of sad.
Honorable mentions are the eclipsed soundtrack and the paranoia sound queue. The eclipsed soundtrack subtly lets the player know it's a hellpit they should have never entered, and the paranoia sound queue enhances the terror you are subconsciously experiencing when you see your homie dead on the floor or encounter a monster that is capable of ending your life in a heartbeat
I really like how the Ghost GIrl works, its kinda spawns rarely ig, if u dont look back to many times, being really too suspecious about ur sorroundings, it kinda fits into the game, bc u scared what is gonna about to happen around the corner or hallway
Honestly I just watched this video as someone else's introduction to Lethal Company. The music is subtle, but part of that. What I didn't expect was... well... the ending. The parallels to childhood being made, and how growing up can distort those once familiar things into a sense of dread, anxiety, or wrongness. The Jack in the box is creepy, but in here? It's foreboding. You kinda opened me up to the items in the game and their meanings with this.
I think most people know what I’m talking about when, your going into the interior alone and hear this very VERY Erie like whistle of a tune that echos through the place for what almost feels like forever(this happens to me sometimes and only when I’m alone)
My favorite part about the game is how every single enemy is pretty harmless when by themselves, granted you know about the enemy and are familiar with the games mechanics. But as soon as their are even 2 different enemies it gets dangerous. The brilliance of the game is how the enemies play of each other so seamlessly. the amount of enemy combos and unique situations i staggering.
The sheer variety in enemies is also incredible. So far, the only enemy that could be labelled as a generic chaser is the Thumper and even it has its mechanics of accelerating, clumsiness and poor object-permanence to make chases feel more interesting. Forest Keepers are also one of the few more generic creatures in this game, being a stealth based enemy, and even it has a respectable amount put into its AI even if it's still fairly simple.
What is interesting to me is that the Jester's theme is used for the latter half of the Lethal Company trailer, an excellent choice but its not until you actually meet the jester that you realize what it was foreshadowing.
I know it’s been months, but now that lethal company has paused updates, do you want to do an update video on this? enemies like the old bird and butler bring this design philosophy to a peak and I feel like you’d adore covering this
I straight-up never realized there was a soundtrack to this game. Maybe it's because I've only watched videos of people playing it, but the only forms of music I can actively recognize from the game is the dropship jingle and the radio
My absolute favorite thing about music is its ability to encapsulate a feeling that words can never describe. This game has that crazy ability, how would you describe the way it makes you feel when you land? It feels like morning, but it's not scary music, its not somber, its not happy or new. As you put it, the music feels "wrong" and it is lovely. When you first arrive you have no idea what is going on, but you need to go and the music propels you to with it's amelodic structure It is only later in the day when you began to get scared by the music because you are more aware of what is going on now
Yo I was just thinking 2 days ago, a few hours before I hit the boss rank with some friends, was alone going to a fire exit and listening to the OST and being like yo this shit slaps
honestly i'm super surprised the eclipsed moon did not get a mention
the pianos are completely gone, replaced by an almost revolting ringing that has the biggest "you really never should have come here" message a sound has ever given imho
it's terrifying stuff
Nice Ikabod Profile picture
Bro knows the Upturned Inn.
For those that don't know, it's a different game made by the Lethal Company dev.
Really an underrated gem.
PECK HECK
To be fair, the Eclipsed Moon theme is difficult to record in peace without immediately being torn to shreds. And to be honest, i cannot blame him for not even having heard it yet, because who the fuck would go to an eclipsed moon lmao
UPTURNED PFP SPOTTED
My first time playing lethal company, a friend jokingly said to run off into the desert, and I could. I did. I spent the entire game wandering through dunes, without any means of direction, joking out loud at first but then just. Lonely. I couldn't make it back if I wanted to. The music slowly droned as I was stuck in a world I literally knew nothing about. Fantastic introduction
E
E
E
E
E
Something I love about the Jester is that even if you've never encountered it before, all you'll do is question it just standing around, but the moment it begins playing you KNOW something absolutely terrible is about to happen and it causes people to be terrified anyway.
Especially if everyone decides to venture deeper into the building the main entrance and fire exit being so far away you have 2 options 1. Run with the loot and hope to make it or 2. Drop everything and ABSOLUTELY RUN FOR IT!
It's because it's a jack-in-the-box. We were all exposed to one as children. It's a classic toy and is meant to startle us, so it's hardcoded to understand something is coming and it's going to be frightening. Even if it popped open and confetti burst out, we would still be anxious every time, just as we are with real jack-in-the-boxes, despite knowing that all that happens is a doll head of some sort is going to pop out and won't hurt us. And we know there's a time limit too, because that's how those work, but we forget to count, so even that's terrifying. The wait, anticipation, trepidation.
@@nachgebenThis is part of why love the "Evil Jack-in-the-box of pain and horror" trope so much. They take advantage of the fact that you KNOW something will come out and that it's going to be terrible to instill anxiety within you. The distinct tune of Pop Goes the Weasel ends up becoming the sound of approaching peril that immediately strikes fear into your heart.
Fr lol
The pitter patter of a coilhead's footsteps followed by the doorstopper like sound after you look at them is pure gold. Those enemies do an amazing job at terrifying me
It's such a great design because it fixes the one thing missing from SCP 173 and weeping angels, a sense of speed. You don't get a sense for how fast weeping angels are moving, they just seem to teleport whenever you look away. But simply adding that spring noise when they stop makes them feel like they're ready to pounce the instant you turn your head. They feel way more dangerous because of that too. It also serves a great gameplay purpose by telling you when a coil head has stopped moving, even if you can't see it or you aren't the one looking at it.
Those coilhead footstep sounds are cute xD
@@vardenispavardenis2780 ?????
Normally coilheads don't scare me but when I'm lost in the tunnel network of the facility, it's dark, and I can't look where I'm stepping as I walk backwards, I jump EVERY time I hear that stopping sound even though I expect it each time because I just turned a corner so obviously the coilhead is going to start moving and then go back into my vision.
@@underscore_5450 They also have footsteps. really loud, heavy, and fast footsteps.
Man, your analysis about childhood being so integral to the theming of the game has really made me look at the whole thing in a new perspective. Almost like a child’s interpretation of what a job might be in the future. Collecting toys from moons filled with boogeymen and monsters.
Such a great analogy. I remember thinking that bugs and insects were 10x larger and scarier when I was younger too.
Also look at all of the creatures. They all look like kids drawings. The eyeless dogs just look like how a kid might draw a scary dog. Just a pacman head with teeth. Same with baboonhawk and forest guardian.
Good point! I always had an inkling the Giants were based off a childhood drawing of some kind. I wouldve drawn something like that@@Zarzar22
@@Zarzar22Add onto that with the fact that Forest Guardians are stated to almost act like toddlers since the reason why they pick up and eat the player is out of curiosity
I never noticed this underlying theme of childhood memories until it was mentioned in this video. All those hours of playtime and only now I realise! I was flabbergasted!
And indeed with that in mind, as the others have mentioned, the monsters' appearance seems all the more... intentional. The genius of Lethal Company goes deeper and deeper.
The contrast of playing this game with friends vs playing it alone is absurd.
Most horror games are usually a lot better solo if you truly want to experience fear but lethal company goes too far. If you're used to playing with people and then jump in solo the sense on loneliness and tension is overwhelming. There's no other goofy player model to laugh at, no one elses funny panicked screams just emptiness. Really sells the abandoned feeling the planets try to give off.
Being a solo player (my friends moved on from it, I still it play it) it took a lot of getting used to solo and even still the atmosphere, ambiance and sound track still scares me.
What I love about the atmosphere of Lethal Company is the hidden gamestat which is pretty realistic to the player
the insanity stat
when you're in the facility, your insanity stat increases, both you and your character are getting insane
when you talk with friends, you get more sane, both you and your character are being comforted
when you find loot over 150 worth, you get more sane, both you and your character forget your troubles
when you see a dead body, you go more insane, both you and your character are stressing out
when a monster engages you, you go more insane, both you and your character are getting scared
when you look behind you a lot, you go more insane, both you and your character are getting paranoid
the parallel of you and your character sharing emotions, truly makes the atmosphere getting real
and god forbid when you get haunted
Also, when you are alone for too long, or being around a dead body for too long, makes your character go insane, and sometimes it causes you to hear a creepy laugh.
Question, what does the insane stat do other than the laugh that the other person mentioned?
@@aierop8434 Basically, if a ghost girl spawns, it chooses the most paranoid player (paranoid players don't increase the spawn chance of ghost girls, its just that ghost girls choose the most vulnerable, or paranoid target)
It also makes you hear the spooky ambiance sounds, and the more paranoid you are, the spookier it gets.
Honestly, its wonderfully terrifying the way it is set up, because if you don't know about the mechanic, you get a fear of working deep inside the facility by yourself because you hear sus sounds, and if you do know what paranoia is you still hate the scary sounds because that legitimately means that the ghost girl is going to be after you sooner or later if she is around, which give a legit reason to not like the spooky sounds
@@aierop8434 Insanity causes light to flicker, ghost girl haunt you and increases the chance of ambient noises
where did you get that your insanity goes down when you look around a lot or carrying too much loot? Or seeing dead bodies or encountering monsters? None of those have anything to do with it. And being outside causes your insanity to drain slower.
i think its so important that three of the most dangerous enemies produce music (jester and nutcracker, ghost girl). it gives contrast to the goofy fun of the store dropship and the boombox. outside of the facility, the music isn't scary. inside the facility, it's terrifying.
if anyone's wondering what the three audios are(maybe cuz they havent watched the video), it's the jester when he starts cranking and playing a more terrifying remix of "Pop goes the weasel", and for the nutcracker, if he goes at a certain hp, he goes into rage mode and starts playing marching music, and the ghost girl, when spotted, starts playing bells in the background, indicating your time has come.
@@SomeTerrariaEnjoyer the nutcracker starts playing the marching music if it sees you
these are def not the most dangerous, jester is more annoying, forcing you to leave the building, nutcracker is just straight up easy to get around and avoid, and ghost girl is only dangerous if you don’t know what to do
@@coal1235 "only dangerous if you don't know what to do" describes literally every enemy in the game. they all have specific counters and predictable behaviours that can give you an advantage if you know how they work
@@coal1235 I'd argue ghost girl is pretty much a run killer, if you're haunted you're doomed to stand behind a wall so she doesn't spawn or death, so yeah she is very dangerous and nearly impossible to avoid without killing your productivity,
Jester is really dangerous, if you find yourself in a position where another monster blocks the exit, or lost in the maze you are pretty much doomed.
Nutcracker is really the only one i'd agree
little fun fact about the nutcracker sounds, every time it shoots, the pitch of the music increases
Does it keep increasing forever? Could you theoretically make it turn comically high pitched?
@@catpoke9557 I think there's a limit but realistically, it wouldn't stay agro that long anyways
Zeekers(the Dev.) knows how to make such good horror chase and ambience music. The Jesters horrifying music when it pops and combined with its loud footsteps is what really terrifies everyone who hasn't leave the building.
and this creative style of music is seen from his previous games especially "It Steals" where the footsteps or screams of the monster is combined with its chase music plus its amazing AI makes the game's chase sequence extremely terrifying
you should check it out sometime
i remember seeing it steals a year ago, and thinking the dev that made it had so much potential if they just made a game with more purpose, turns out i was right ig
@@its9301 btw a year ago, lethal company was in alpha testing, only recently released to the public
the music isnt that good, minecraft music would have literally been scarier imo
@@LTstinkysocksMcGee420 🤓
theres also dead seater
i can’t believe how you didn’t talk about the whole intro “great asset to the company- great- great asset- to the company…” bit at all! it sets the tone of the game perfectly & no one gives it enough credit
Right? I'm always throwing my ass-et at the beginning of each run
@@wwrenLMAO
He's talking about ambience, not direct music like the boombox, Great Asset would literally fall into music and isn't white noise or ambience.
the childhood motif is so obvious but somehow i never explicitly realized it. And sigurds logs are written in a very childish way as well.
yeah lol
i have nearly fifty hours in the game, and my record quota is 6000~…
but weirdly enough, in my learning of the game and in my early hours, i don’t remember hearing a single song or melody that wasn’t an ambient noise. then, somewhere around my 40th hour, i walked out of a fire exit narrowly escaping imminent death, and the simplistic but beautiful exterior music blessed my ears. it was truly like a breath of fresh air in more way than one. i still don’t know if all the time i was tuning out the music, or if it wasn’t there for all those hours. lethal company is already a near perfect game, and it has so much potential it’s unbelievable. i can’t wait to see what else the developers throw at us.
It is only one single developer lol
The outside soundtrack reminded me of a fusion between BOTW and Minecraft. And it somehow makes me feel calm. Like the game is telling don’t worry there are no monsters around, but that also means there are no friends either. You are the sole survivor, keep surviving
S-sole Survivor?!
THY END IS NOW
I love Zeekerss music design. They're the only game soundtrack I've EVER bought with my own money, and that was for one of their other titles, The Upturned. There was one specific chase beat in that game which had me hooked, and I instantly clicked into buying the soundtrack. Everything about The Upturned is such a good showcase of the dev's talents imo, from the chaotic, comedy horror; the fun, cute, but sometimes terrifying character designs; and the catchy as hell music and sound design.
Ironically, when Lethal Company first started getting big, I didn't pay much attention to it. Until youtube autoplayed a video of one of my subsrcibed playing it. I was like "hm" when I first heard the funky beats of "great great asset", but the second the supply pod dropped and the tune started playing, I KNEW it had to be Zeekerrs. Instantly ran to stream and, lo and behold, it was. You don't get someone recognisable for their game music very often.
I had the fortune of already knowing about him through It Steals and to see the trailer for Lethal Company and wait in anticipation until it dropped. Let me just say, it was so strange to see the game just blow up in popularity when initially, Zeekerss was a relatively obscure dev that I wouldn't expect most to know about.
Same thing happened with TADC too. It feels almost surreal.
Company? Lethal? In this economy?
Hey, I know this is totally random but watching your videos has educated me a lot on the deeper meanings behind pieces of media and on analysis in general. I know this is a bit of a long shot, but have you ever heard of the Faith trilogy. It's like an 8bit single player game series. I've seen and played a bit of it but always felt like I was missing something deeper and haven't been able to find much on it. I feel like it would make a phenomenal video if you ever needed an idea.
I have never heard of it, but I’m always open to suggestions! I’ll have to take a look! Thanks for reaching out :)
@@fortcollinsproductions absolutely, glad to hear you're open to that kinda stuff. I promise it won't disappoint
Lethal… Company? What makes it so deadly?
Idk probably lacking benefits or something. No dental?
I never really considered the impact that lethal company’s audio design had on the over game experience and ambiance, but now I realize it would not be half as scary or interesting without the games off putting sound effects and spooky music. Thank you for another fantastic video.
The ghost girl honestly reminds me alot of Death from Puss in Boots. Just how even with your teammates being there, you cant make out what they are saying anymore, you hear the sound, you cant take your focus off of the girl, and for the new player, they'll freak out.
i didnt even think to consider this games link to childhood, but as soon as you said it, it made so much sense. this is a goated video, thank you for making it
literally, pure genius
I think you've wonderfully put to words the exact feeling that I get when I leave my team during a game. Everybody is going back to the ship to put their scrap away, and I'm the fourth, with no scrap yet, and still a lot of time to gather more. Going back into the interior alone, and even just hearing the footsteps of my 3 team members walk away to the ship sends the game into a completely different genre. I'm alone, I'm vulnerable, and the only thing having a walkie-talkie will do is let me tell my team I am doomed in the very likely event that I run into something dangerous. And they'll be left to wonder what happened to me when they come back into the interior, with no response on the radio, up until the point they either find my body or teleport it onto the ship, that lightheartedness of multiplayer suddenly interrupted by one of two dilemmas: "Where is my teammate?..." Or "What killed my teammate?..."
Im surprised you didn't mention the music that plays on an eclipsed moon. It's a kinda campy halloween-y tune, but I think it does a great job of adding a sense of danger to the game. Then again, you cam only hear it if you and your friends actually shut the fuvk up like you're supposed to lol
There’s music on the eclipsed moons??! That’s so freken cool I didn’t even realize! Thank you for this enlightenment lmao
The eclipsed music is awesome, just downright spooky! @@fortcollinsproductions
@@fortcollinsproductions The Eclipsed Moons really give you an heavy atmosphere, downright telling you that coming here wasnt a good idea. Not only that but the Company Building also has its own piano track!
@@KCNeth just straight up stole the comment above this thread
as someone who solos often, the world feels so dead, just as intended. When I do play in public, I notice someone enters the fire exit, and never comes out, if you're not on the radar, there is this mysteries feel, and when you hit those realizations the soundtrack makes it a far more worrying realization
“It doesn’t even show you its full complexity when you’re first playing the game. It expects you to become brave, or careless enough to find its secrets.”
You have easily summarized my personal favorite genre of games in a way that I never could. These games are filled to the brim with story, culture, environment, ambience, conflict-very complex world building. Yet they give the player complete agency, with no real goals, missions, tasks, or quests to guide them through its lore.
You are left on your own to figure it out. Maybe you already have a role in the world, but it is still your decision if you keep it or find your own purpose instead.
A life simulator in a world unknown to you. You are a child again with unbounded curiosity and wonder, and the world you play in is a jungle gym waiting for you to explore.
Lethal company was a surprise to me, I wasn't expecting it to have such a cool soundtrack, I remember screaming for everyone to stop talking so I could hear the exterior soundtrack the first time it played, pretty cool stuff.
My first time going to one of the Hard moons, 85-Rend, one of my friends had earlier on this play-through read the Jester's description in the Bestiary:
Get out of there before it goes APE!! You can't hide from it, just evacuate.
THERE'S NO FREAKING SCIENTIFIC RECORD! good luck, you know as much as us. we just call it the jester.
We took it as "this entity might be so dangerous that we have to get away from the moon we're on if we come across it". We knew that the Jester had a decent chance to spawn on Rend, so we decided that only two of us were going to enter the manor: me and one of my friends. Also, this was our first time on a Hard moon, so we didn't know about the snowy ambience, it felt novel, although threatening. It didn't take long to find the Jester, it walked into the main hall about a minute in...
We didn't know what it looked like, so we scanned it and it read "Jester". About to shit ourselves we get out, run back to the ship and consider leaving the place, but, we had noticed that it started winding itself up. This made us curious, so I decided that I'd go back in and see what it'd do.
I went back in, and there it was, in the main hall staring at me. It started winding, and I just watched it whilst stressing to my friends on a walkie-talkie about how nervously terrifying this was. When the winding was reaching it's end, I had ran up to the left balcony in the main hall. It started chasing me, running up the stairs, and me, being terrified as I was, I jumped down and somehow made it out of the manor. I also got back to the ship, and we were contemplating the horror of this enemy.
I actually have the main ambience theme for this game as a morning alarm. The piano is just so calming.
Really appreciate being featured in the video! Just a side note I didn’t do the sound design for the game but the sound design in the video that’s featured is all mine.
Really appreciate the feature 😊
Lethal Company music is best described as nostalgic discordance, where you're reminiscing about a better time in your life under dire circumstances. You know you're on a tight leash, and the consequences of failure are just as bad as death, but there's reminders of your past that you think of and look back on, yearning for better days.
I love the use of juxtaposition in this game. It's central to just about every aspect of it, both internally with it's mix of horror and comedy, and the musical direction you talked about, but also in its implied themes. It fits in with the contradiction of our generations exhausted attempts to still see beauty in a world that continuously loses its shine to our hands, our ironic laughter in the face of our self imposed apocalypse. This game so perfectly encapsulates the confusion of just _being_ in the world today.
Those moments when you're outside, walking back towards the fire door and your possible, eventually certain death just to find one more piece of scrap. The piano plays as the background music of the question, _"why am I still doing this?"_
Bro, this essay is the freshest one in a couple of months for me. When you brought up the childhood topic, my eyebrow legit flew up faster than a rocket. Great job, you’ve really said something new
This is an extremely well crafted video! I find the eclipsed audio to be especially eerie as well, kind of warning us that we aren't supposed to be there.
‘A bad dream’ best description yet
I actually find the outside ambient piano calming and cozy. It feels comfortable, like seeing a good friend after a very long time.
4:03 when you’re soloing it’s even spookier, because you never get that comforting chatter. Currently on day 14 of my solo run
Relating to childhood horrors. The coilhead is a mix of two. When I was younger I remember reading about SCP-173, the de facto original and very first SCP.
The fact that it moves really, really fast when you aren't looking at it combined with it's instantaneous stop the moment someone looks at it. A door stopper, slinky, springs etc are all fun things I played with when I was little.
The sudden stopping reminds many people of a door stopper- again, something that's a mi of a utility and a "toy". The sound it makes. The pitter patter of feet. It all goes together to subconsciously remind you of your when times were less complicated. But now you have to literally get a move on without losing track of what's important.
I was looking for someone who said this!! Also about the pitter patter and the spring/slinky aspect.
@@devlovemongoose Heck yeah.
I guess another layer to it aside from no arms murder slinky head man is kinda going back to walking around your home barefoot and then stopping the moment someone sees you, not expecting them.
(Gonna add another reply under mine in a moment bunker spiders!)
On bunker spiders and some others. Along with literally every monster in the game, they're unreasonably large. The Snare Flea and Mantecoil are the only "small" creatures.
Bunker Spiders kinda remind me of how BIG of an issue spiders are as a kid. Bunch of legs, uncaring, "don't mess with it's web". The only thing out of the childhood phrases I remember being false is "It's more scared of you than you are of it".
First off:
A: It's a spider, I wouldn't say they have even lizard brain. "fear" isn't a thing (me being silly)
B: Who are you, a human, to tell me, also a human that a spider- not a human- is more afraid of the human? I don't have arachnophobia, but I do have a degree of aversion towards them.
The sound of the spider seems about as straight forward as it can get. Sticky, heavy and thumpy.
Sticky because that's the general idea of how bug feet work.
Heavy because... It's huge.
And thumpy because... It's legs are also huge. And makes a big noise.
I love the design of the spiders because they're really simple but have just enough to activate the "lizard brain" part for me to recognize danger.
Hoarding Bugs have a similar sound design philosophy but relatively smaller/more compact. That plus the sound of them flying when aggressive. This one I honestly am not entirely sure where the "twist childhood iconography into horror" stems from? Possibly hoarders in general? Like "don't take their stuff. They're very passionate about the stuff they're newer going to use again".
Thumpers (Halves) are a fun one. As a kid, I vividly remember being afraid of large public swimming pools because I was afraid of sharks (which apparently is exactly what thumpers are. Which. What.) Along with the completely disconnected concern of sharks finding their home in fine, chlorinated water. An environment that is simply not meant for them.
A bunker let alone a mansion is nowhere I would ever associate where a shark would be in real life. It's exactly proportionate to how nonsensical a shark in a pool would be.
Of course the lore expands on it being genetically modified. Regardless. It seems "arbitrary" (in a good way) that a shark would be selected instead to be "gene modified" instead of- say - a bear or a lion- or a wolf for that matter.
Them being the sighted counterpart to the Eyeless Dog is great as well.
It's sounds are very interesting because it's clear, concise and jarring. They were the first enemy that I'd encountered in the game and they're the first enemy whose sounds I learned the quickest.
As far as sounds to recall from my life from when i was younger? I honestly couldn't say for sure. Maybe how when someone is really angry and they stomp around?
Again. Something I heard but never really was directly experienced.
Snare Fleas make great sense. Many people have or have had dogs. You hear about fleas a ton so you're worrying about it all the while. As far as sounds? No clue. Just something to recognize.
Spore Lizards... I wan gonna say I'm stumped about this one.... I do have an idea. It's just. A rattlesnake. But like. It can fart and has legs.
I'm... Gonna go sleep now. Thank you for coming to my ted talk.
@@1-800-YLFEN-NAIEThumpers aren't actually gene-modified. Most alien life in Lethal Company were creatures from Earth presumably seeded on these foreign moons by a large vessel called The Boat (sort of like Noah's Ark honestly). They then started to rapidly adapt to their new environment to become the strange beasts we know today.
Another game I praise heavily for it's soundtrack is Boneworks. The soundtrack does a great job at creating atmosphere to the world you are in and perfectly manipulates and recontextualizes the game's main motif, and this combined with the games synth heavy music design greatly compliments the environments you are in and always reminds you of where you are, a computer generated simulation from the 90s. I highly recommend listening to its soundtrack, but I personally think its better to experience it for yourself in-game. I will never forget hearing the games main melody replayed after the ending in a sad and more hopeful light
This has become one of my favorite videos to revisit in such a strange yet comforting observation of lethal company. I hope a second video comes in the near future
I fckn love Zeekerz's audio design, almost all of his games are A+ tier
One thing I think adds to the atmosphere of the interior more than anything is the paranoia ambience. The terror of being alone in this game slowly creeps up on you as you realize you drifted away from your friends, and then hearing some strange sounds, a school alarm bell, or a distant “hey” it’s hard to tell if you’re alone anymore…
The way you describe Lethal Company OST and its ambiance was nothing but wonderful. I never thought either Lethal Company wouldn't grow on me but it as it slowly went from 80 hours on record to now almost 210 hours, running either with friends or solo it never gets old. As the monsters, moons or items have so much stuff to them. Subscribe to you and can't wait to see more of your work
210 hours! That's insane! I have just under 50 hours, you have made the company very proud.
Zeekers, off 30 perc writing the score and thematic coding for the game: whar?
this was such a fun and interesting listen! I can't way to listen out for more of the piano next session!
also both of your pronunciations of ambiance were correct
You mentioned every time of day, except the scariest... Midnight.
When that smiling skull pops up and the music completely ends its softer tone... you're completely alone and there are enemies around you, your equipment has died and so have all of your buddies, it truly gets a chill up my spine.
"You really need to get to the ship" it almost says.
i love how much quality over quantity was put into this game instead of the normal AAA experience
I’m honestly obsessed with this video. The way you used the background music to compliment your own voice, and the way you perfectly explain everything is just so relaxing and is like a documentary. Keep up the good work! ❤
My god this is masterfully put together. Best video all week. Straight up.
Your first encounter with the ghost girl was fantastic. Everything it was designed to be and more. Me & my friends had been spoiled on it so we didn't really get that experience, but I'm so glad you did
I feel like the game's soundtrack is trying, in some way, to tell you a story, something about the situation of this strange universe, something you can barely notice when playing with friends, but only when you're all alone.
You're working on moons, that were once turned into a place with possibilities, turned into a land of death and desolation, now dominated by the creatures you encounter. All the scrap you find goes to a mysterious company, holding something... we don't know at all.
The soundtrack at 5:50 is definitely my favorite, it almost feels like it's telling you that our existence, as we know, is fading away, being dominated by something bigger that we could ever imagine, something incomprehensible to the human mind, the end for us is near... yet we still get a little glimpse of peace, knowing that there's still time for us. Maybe... we're the last hope humanity, or whatever it is, has...
here i was expecting some sort of analysis about the boombox music (was especially looking forward to what you had to say about track 1) but this was actually really well thought out. i hadn't thought about the childhood theme at all and now it's got me thinking
Using the inverse teleporter for the first time was delightfully terrifying. Going from the sound of my laughing friends wishing me luck as I hype myself doing the dance emote. To the sudden silence and darkness knowing I am alone and I don't know how to get out. Especially on higher level rooms where enemies can spawn at any time. By the time I got out I felt like a shaking mess with only a soda can and sheet metal to show for.
Another powerful and amazing video. I've never played Lethal Company and only ever heard about it. its seemed so simple and alike a Phasmaphobia knock off, so i wondered what lethal company was and why everyone is obsessed with playing it. The detail in the placement of the music never occurred to me. I felt the fear and dread as i watched. I felt the odd beauty you mentioned.
your voice and tone of speaking also helped the experience XD
i dont know, theres just a thoughtful slide to your voice that perfect for video essays
its worth 10 bucks as long as your friends also have it
@@neddacat2508 playing with randoms is also fun lmao, people from those lobbies are now my lethal company friends
Play the game
glad to see some love to the ever present unscene part of the game. the first time i heard that track that's in 1:44 the game felt like it all came together
the outside music played in this reminds me of the music for the Rusty Lake/Cube Escape series. strong recommend if anyone wants to listen to more of this kind of music.
i produce, and ive always noticed the greatness in this game. i was expecting someone to make a video of this. Thank you! subbed!👍
this was an incredible video essay/documentary! everything you touched upon are many of the reasons why i love this game! after playing over 100 hours solo and 100 hours coop, i will say that you are very correct that the game becomes very eerie yet serene once you no longer hear laughter, once you no longer hear screams, once you are alone.
the music outside gives me such an odd feeling that you described very well, much better than i ever could. what you also discussed about becoming braver to venture further into the facility and for much longer into the day is also a very nice touch, since it is indeed that player growth that lets us better appreciate every aspect the game offers to us (or despise getting unlucky with monsters that have opposite counters).
the narrative you started building regarding the nostalgia of childhood being contrasted by the fear of death is wonderful! i think it ties in very well with the atmosphere of the game: you are delving into these abandoned facilities, yet you never learn the reasons why these places abandoned. what happened to the inhabitants? are the monsters inside or outside the culprits? where do these scrap items come from? who used to live and work here?
i really enjoyed watching this, and i can't wait to see what other videos you have in store for us!
I love the harmonies chosen for the “ice cream truck” song. It’s a familiar tune, but the underlying harmonies are just off enough to give it a crunchy and strange sound. Something familiar, but wrong.
The most amazing part is that, the game was likely developed almost entirely alone. It's so quiet that if you're talking you can't hear it, if others are talking it's hard to hear, and if nobody is around, you hear everything.
When playing alone, you almost want to turn off all the breakers just to hear even if it means you can't see. The whirr of the fans is so loud it can cause you to get lost as you spiral up or down a flight of stairs in a hurry. The bubbling of steam pouring through a busted pipe not only blinds you but deafens you to even the high pitch screeching of mines. The meaty grind of a thumpers torso as it drags itself around is even worse, from so far away you know not to approach that direction.
Outside, a giant or a worm thud and gurgle, a warning to anything that comes near because once they find you, it's over. You can sprint as fast as you can, but it's purely luck if you survive. Eyeless dogs give little sound cues and just stalk in the darkness hoping to be unnoticed so that their prey makes a single mistake.
But what's even better, is that no beast can both see and hear. The only exception being the jester which is both deaf and blind, but always knows you're they're. And every single one is a play on a child's game, hide and seek, red light green light, chase and tag, cops and robbers, but all with different objectives and failures than what you're familar with. The only exception there being the coil head, at least as far as I'm aware.
Then Jeb, the permanently upset "company." The one that always knows what's happening and never intervenes because it's "employees" can't hurt it. The uncarring god and it's creations, or the absent parent and it's children. They won't hesitate to remove a player from the game if they're too loud, but they don't care if it's them or something they're holding. "The company", a building with no land or inhabitants, but rather a constantly raining floodscape, coated in "water" where if you fall in, the act alone will kill you.
And yet, nobody remembers how they got aboard in the first place. They remember everything before, but that's all. Nobody knows where everyone else on the planet's went, mansions, vast underground laboratories, small huts, warehouses, and watertowers, as well as summaries in the terminal, all tell of a once industrial society thriving. Yet there's nobody, but you.
We love the company
THE COMPANY
WE ALL LOVE THE COMPANY
BANGER OF A VIDEO! Loved this!
You explained everything really well :>>
Its insane to me how there are still people who think realistic graphics equal good graphics, and everything else just looks bad.
Quantity will always be better than quality
I know, it's infuriating, and it probably doesn't help that a decent number of people crank the brightness so high that everything looks washed out...
im so glad someone talked about the music in lethal company. my favorite ambient track is Ambience 2, the song played at 5:50. there's a tone of sadness with hints of serene comfort. these planets are almost familiar, yet they're still alien. it's walking through the environments. i think the music that is present here is for those who want to listen; like you said, you're usually with others, laughing and talking while the soundtrack quietly lingers in the background. for the careful ear.
This video finally inspired me to get to making my own video essay. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, and I’m really glad you managed to motivate me :)
thoroughly enjoyed this vid, you highlighted some stuff i hadnt actively noticed, such as the piano changing depending on the time of day.
I’m glad someone is talking about something that I noticed and appreciated immediately. Granted it’s put into better words than I could ever put.
Incredible video, the presentation of the Childhood Motif is so obvious yet I never realized it myself. It really makes the game more immersive now that I’ve learned this.
another banger from my fellow fort collins-ian
I like your last point about the game waiting for you to become careless or brave.
When the teachers says we can choose our essay topic 😎
My introduction to this work of art was terrific. As me and my friend played it for the first time, we flew to experimentation and jumped right into the facility expecting monsters everywhere, but it was quiet, too quiet… any slight sound can be horrifying in a situation such as that, we didnt encounter any dangers that day, but it’s not about what you see, it’s about the fact that you know something’s in there, something… watching you
This game scratched an itch I didn’t knew I had, and that was good atmosphere. I love walking alone on rend
The recent update added another entity who plays music, the barber. Also the butlers I believe have music with them when they go ape shit with a knife.
As an avid Left for Dead 2 player, I felt like I took an especially close notice to Lethal Company's audio cues. It's truly amazing and you did a great job articulating it here. Thanks!
As you walk through the desolate halls of the facility, the eerie silence is only broken by the hissing of pipes and the echoing of your footsteps. The dim lighting that flickers on at the intersections is the only source of comfort in the otherwise suffocating darkness. However, as you turn a corner, you find yourself in an abrupt dead end, the darkness closing in around you. Just as you realize your mistake, you see a pair of white, glowing eyes staring back at you from the shadows. The creature growls menacingly before quickly retreating into the darkness, leaving you frozen in terror. It's impossible to know how long it had been following you, but the realization that you're not alone in these halls is bone-chilling.
4:07 you actually made me spit out my water there, I thought you were gonna get killed by a bracken or coil head, or spider. The Snare flea was literally the one thing I wasn’t expecting
And then there's the uuuuh. Interesting reharm on the supply drop
I play DRG. I found a mod where the ice cream truck music plays when every drop pod lands.
Dude, this is so good! How do you not have more subs? Looks like I found what i’m watching for the next 48 hours of my life!
Those times when I got lost heading into the complex and only had the piano with me- feeling almost peaceful, but still unnerved- that’s something special.
Another perfect example of ambiance, applying to the game in a good way. Minecraft we can all agree when we hear those Minecraft cave sounds playing while we're deep in the mines looking for diamonds. It's the most scary thing in the fucking world. I mean, even when we're not the game for diamonds. And we're just digging dirt to build our new plateau to build a new base. It's still terrifying yet. It's one that we still keep coming back to.
That was an awesome breakdown of the game's ost. Good job!
I absolutely love the piano music
I played Lethal company for the first time recently and joined a server with little kids that were confused on what to do. My scanning couldn't detect the main entrance so I just wandered until I could see a ladder. When I did, the music kicked in, extremely subtle and kind of sad. It Not really sad to the point that you know the feeling, but the odd type of sad.
Honorable mentions are the eclipsed soundtrack and the paranoia sound queue. The eclipsed soundtrack subtly lets the player know it's a hellpit they should have never entered, and the paranoia sound queue enhances the terror you are subconsciously experiencing when you see your homie dead on the floor or encounter a monster that is capable of ending your life in a heartbeat
I really like how the Ghost GIrl works, its kinda spawns rarely ig, if u dont look back to many times, being really too suspecious about ur sorroundings, it kinda fits into the game, bc u scared what is gonna about to happen around the corner or hallway
I love your analysis in your videos, amazing work
Great video man, i love this style of videos
Honestly I just watched this video as someone else's introduction to Lethal Company. The music is subtle, but part of that. What I didn't expect was... well... the ending. The parallels to childhood being made, and how growing up can distort those once familiar things into a sense of dread, anxiety, or wrongness. The Jack in the box is creepy, but in here? It's foreboding. You kinda opened me up to the items in the game and their meanings with this.
I think most people know what I’m talking about when, your going into the interior alone and hear this very VERY Erie like whistle of a tune that echos through the place for what almost feels like forever(this happens to me sometimes and only when I’m alone)
My favorite part about the game is how every single enemy is pretty harmless when by themselves, granted you know about the enemy and are familiar with the games mechanics. But as soon as their are even 2 different enemies it gets dangerous. The brilliance of the game is how the enemies play of each other so seamlessly. the amount of enemy combos and unique situations i staggering.
The sheer variety in enemies is also incredible. So far, the only enemy that could be labelled as a generic chaser is the Thumper and even it has its mechanics of accelerating, clumsiness and poor object-permanence to make chases feel more interesting. Forest Keepers are also one of the few more generic creatures in this game, being a stealth based enemy, and even it has a respectable amount put into its AI even if it's still fairly simple.
Amazing video. I know it sounds strange, but this video almost made me tear up.
What is interesting to me is that the Jester's theme is used for the latter half of the Lethal Company trailer, an excellent choice but its not until you actually meet the jester that you realize what it was foreshadowing.
Nothing makes my heart drop more than being inside the facility and hearing *the* tune, to me it always signifies that a monster has spawned 😅
Bro love your channel so much 😭
I know it’s been months, but now that lethal company has paused updates, do you want to do an update video on this? enemies like the old bird and butler bring this design philosophy to a peak and I feel like you’d adore covering this
Imagine hearing eclipsed music while you are out camping with friends in the forest
I straight-up never realized there was a soundtrack to this game. Maybe it's because I've only watched videos of people playing it, but the only forms of music I can actively recognize from the game is the dropship jingle and the radio
This is such a great video and I'm only 50 seconds in, well done!
My absolute favorite thing about music is its ability to encapsulate a feeling that words can never describe. This game has that crazy ability, how would you describe the way it makes you feel when you land? It feels like morning, but it's not scary music, its not somber, its not happy or new. As you put it, the music feels "wrong" and it is lovely. When you first arrive you have no idea what is going on, but you need to go and the music propels you to with it's amelodic structure
It is only later in the day when you began to get scared by the music because you are more aware of what is going on now
Yo I was just thinking 2 days ago, a few hours before I hit the boss rank with some friends, was alone going to a fire exit and listening to the OST and being like yo this shit slaps