Abiotic Factor, a 6-player survival game where you're scientists in a paranormal lab, is rising up Steam's top-sellers chart

Gordon Freeman is a nerd who cuts a heroic profile, but in Abiotic Factor you're just a nerd: a regular, lab-coat-wearing new employee in a Black Mesa-like science facility that's undergoing an unspecified security situation. Your job, at least for starters, is to avoid dying.

Out in early access on Steam today, Abiotic Factor's premise seems to be striking a chord with co-op survival crafting fans: It hasn't hit Steam's top concurrents chart at the time of writing, but it has jumped to seventh place in Steam's US top-sellers list just a few hours after launch.

I like how much Abiotic Factor commits to the '90s parody corporate scientist theme: its character creator features 19 ties, 12 kinds of glasses, and 11 snazzy belts. And how refreshing it is to play a co-op survival crafting game that doesn't immediately ask you to punch down a tree! The rough equivalent in Abiotic Factor is bashing an old beige computer case to bits and harvesting its power supply. 

About an hour into the game, I've set up a base of operations in an employee break room on one of the underground facility's office levels, where I was deposited against my will due to whatever security protocol the unscrupulous management has activated. You're doing essentially the same thing you do in other survival games—collecting resources and crafting increasingly complex things with them—but starting as a nerd MacGyver instead of a Stone Age hunter gatherer puts some surprise back into the formula. I just figured out how to craft test tubes, and I am curious and slightly nervous to find out what they're for.

My goal, at the moment, is to evacuate the office sector via the manufacturing sector. I haven't explored much, but I am anxious about signage that points toward «animal pens.» So far I've mostly only had to fight off jumpy little headcrab-like alien things, which I've been awkwardly waving a knife at or catching in nets and stomping on. Another danger is radiation, and I'll also need sleep, food, and