7 Minutes in Hell is the latest co-op horror game on Steam that wants to get you screaming over proximity chat

When a videogame format works, videogame developers make sure we don't forget it: After hits like Phasmophobia and Lethal Company, four-player co-op horror games are the genre du jour—next to extraction shooters, at least—and we now get a new one about about as often as Tim Sweeney says the word «metaverse.» The latest is 7 Minutes in Hell, which just released in early access on Steam and challenges up to four players to escape procedurally-generated death mazes with as much cash as they can pick up along the way.

With PC Gamer's Chris Livingston and Andy Chalk beside me, I braved 7 Minutes In Hell's labyrinths last week, and my early reaction is that it has good potential in the 'making your Discord friends laugh/scream' genre, but may need to better distinguish itself from its competition.

You and your friends are contestants in a deadly game show, and after buying supplies like extra battery juice for your flashlights, you charge into a maze with seven minutes to find the exit while avoiding traps like circular saws and, in our experience, bothersome spiders that are surprisingly resistant to being bashed on the head with sticks. (Things escalate the longer you play, and there are scarier-looking monsters than spiders in the screenshots on Steam.)

Acting on intrusive thoughts also proved dangerous: Chris jumped into a meat grinder which, as you'd expect, killed Chris. The good news is that the seven minute time limit means unrevivable players never have to wait around for long. It also might've generated some nice tension had we been competent enough to find the maze exit with time to spare. If we had, we could've run back into the labyrinth to search for more loot and cash, risking death by spider or saw or poison gas rather than counting our blessings and going back to the lobby.

One thing I look for in a game like this is immersive sim-like logic: If I combine two items in a way that should do something, does it do something? I didn't personally find any