Night of the Consumers is an old-school-style horror game that turns retail customers into creatures scarier than the walking dead (they don't act any differently than their real-life counterparts, of course, they're just polygonal this time), and the viral indie finally has a proper release date.
Night of the Consumers first dropped on Itch.io in 2020 with a kind of unofficial early access release. "Note: This game is a work in progress. If you purchase the game you will receive any future updates for free," the store page reads. But it was still compelling enough to go absolutely viral on social media.
Big name streamers, like Markiplier and CoryxKenshin, even picked up the game with some Let's Plays gathering a whopping 31 million clicks. Talk about momentum.
Developer Germfood finally announced a release date for their long-awaited "Retail Is Hell" sim earlier this week, though. Night of the Consumers properly launches on Steam on July 11.
The gist is that you're working a retail shift, which should be horrifying enough as a concept. You're mopping up vomit and restocking shelves and frantically juggling a million chores and trying to avoid the hungry customers limping around looking for help.
Need more? OK, OK. If a cursed-looking consumer spots you, they'll zoom toward you with the speed of a supernatural entity and ask you for directions - shudder - as if the store's banners are up for no reason. Take too long to finish all your tasks and it's game over.
Anyone with retail experience will know how to survive the night shift with your job intact: pretend you can't hear the groans of a hungry customer, throw a box of beers at their face, and run away to the staff room until they move on. "With the clock ticking down, you'll have to resort to more extreme measures to ensure you finish your daily tasks and not upset The Manager," the Steam page teases. Bonus trivia: Here's what the game looked like in its earliest days.
In the meantime, here's a list of the best horror games ever made or you can look to the future with our upcoming indie games of 2025 guide.
