New Horror Game is Blowing Up on Steam

Partially thanks to being free for a limited time, horror game Content Warning has blown up on Steam. Steam has an immense catalog of games, and some indie hits sometimes stand out from the rest, as Content Warning is now.

April Fools' Day has been celebrated in the gaming community for many years. Some classic April Fools' Day moments include Google Maps becoming a giant Pac-Man game, Overwatch heroes being adorned with googly eyes, and Blizzard announcing playable World of Warcraft Ogres. Among this year's April Fools moments are a Call of Duty: Warzone LTM, a Palworld dating simulator, and anti-gravity in Apex Legends. Beyond these limited-time gags that players could enjoy, other studios offered reduced prices for April 1. Landfall Publishing took this one step further by releasing Content Warning for free on Steam for only 24 hours.

IGN has confirmed that Content Warning is no longer free on Steam, with the indie game now costing $7.99. In the brief 24-hour period in which it was free, Content Warning reached some impressive milestones. Over 6.2 million players have added the game to their Steam profiles, and it hit a peak of 204,439 players during the free offer. The game was also ninth on the Steam top seller's list, and it has a 96% positive review score from players that have downloaded it.

Beyond being offered for free on April Fool's Day 2024, there are many gameplay elements that help Content Warning appeal to a broad audience. The co-op horror game groups up to four players together as emoji-faced characters called ASCII. These characters view the world through a camera lense and are tasked with exploring a terrifying location dubbed the Old World to acquire scary footage for a video sharing platform called Spooktube. If players garner significant viewership on their Spooktube videos, they can upgrade their gear to survive the Old World and make better content.

Although Content Warning still has many glitches to address, Landfall Publishing has