Solo dev behind one of Steam's biggest viral hits, Lethal Company, gives his new game away for free after 10 years of work: "I only want to sell a game if I'm very certain that most people will enjoy it"

Releasing a hit like co-op horror icon Lethal Company is sure to bring some pressure with it, but it also gives you the creative and financial freedom to follow your heart wherever it may lead. Solo creator and horror enthusiast Zeekerss says there's no reason to put "unnecessary pressure on myself" at this point, freeing him up to focus exclusively on getting good games into player hands, even if it doesn't make him any money at all, and even if that game took roughly 10 years to finish.

Welcome To The Dark Place started as a Roblox prototype around 2015, Zeekerss explains in an interview with GamesRadar+, and only recently launched on Steam as a horror text adventure. Like some of Zeekerss' previous releases, it's totally free. Unlike those games, it took a decade. It might sound wild to give away that much work, but that prolonged development period is actually part of the reason it's free.

"At one point I was going to sell this game, but then I put it aside to work on other projects, and since then my standards for myself have gone up," Zeekerss says. "I only want to sell a game if I'm very certain that most people will enjoy it. This game requires some extra skills from the player for it to be fully enjoyed."

One of those skills is cartography, as it happens. Welcome To The Dark Place uses a lot of directional clues to help you feel your way around a surprisingly large world, and you're provided with a simple but handy in-game mapmaker to keep track of where you're going and what choices lead to which events.

"Plus, because I've never made something like this before, I also just didn't know how much people would like it," Zeekerss continues. "And now after Lethal Company, I just don't have a reason to put unnecessary pressure on myself. It just doesn't feel right for this game anymore."

In fairness, most people have enjoyed it. Welcome To The Dark Place has done pretty well for itself, racking up 286 "Very Positive" user reviews on Steam since its October 24 launch. That's a tad shy of Lethal Company's near 400,000 "Overwhelmingly Positive" reviewers, but not everything needs to be a Lethal Company-sized hit.

Zeekerss also shared that he has considered ideas for a still-hypothetical Lethal Company 2, which "surpasses my own ambition" and even put the idea of forming a team in his head.

Life after Lethal Company: solo creator Zeekerss says "weirdly, not a lot has changed" after one of the biggest indie hits in recent memory, and he still has "a good handful of ideas for games."