Steam suddenly has another new viral sensation in the form of Schedule 1, an open-world drug dealing simulator that's offering a free sample to get you in the door for its paid early access release. The game offers enough sandbox shenanigans to make it decent fodder for streamers, but there seems to be some genuine, er, substance here too.
At a basic level, Schedule 1 is a first-person open-world sandbox game with a Rick and Morty-style aesthetic set in a run-down city. Imagine if GTA was a Bethesda RPG, and you'll pretty well get the idea. Wandering NPCs keep to their own schedules, and you can do things like pickpocket them or straight-up beat them senseless with objects you find in the world.
But the core of the game is making and selling drugs. Within 30 minutes of starting the free demo – which you can grab for yourself on Steam – I'd rented out a seedy motel room, filled it with grow chambers from the local hardware store, and started growing marijuana plants with seeds bought from a black market merchant via text message. You list your goods through a black market app, field texts from potential buyers, and go out to make the deals in person in various darkened corners of the city.
Actions like pouring soil, watering plants, and packing baggies full of illicit product all take the form of simple mini-games that make the process feel hands-on without bogging it down through endless tedium. As the game progresses, you'll be able to hire workers to do the basic labor for you, and you can spread the duties out to other players in co-op.
Add the promise of deadly encounters with police and rival cartels as your drug empire expands, and you've got a winning formula – one that's already connecting with many players. Two days after its March 24 launch, it's currently the top-selling game on Steam and has reached a peak of 116,408 concurrent players, as SteamDB shows. User ratings are strong, too, with 98% of Steam reviewers dropping a positive response.
According to the Steam page, Schedule 1 will remain "in early access for approximately two years," during which it will receive a "significant expansion of the map, several more drugs and production processes, a larger customer and supplier network, as well as more fun things to spend your hard-earned cash on." Here's hoping Schedule 1 can earn that kind of longevity.
