Despite a disaster launch, Blair Witch inspired horror game sells over 100,000 copies as dev commits "to face everything head on"

Multiplayer horror titles are everywhere these days. YouTube let's plays brought horror back from the brink, with collaborative Twitch streams highlighting the chaos that ensues when you bring a bunch of people together (on the internet) to face monsters from the relative comfort of their secluded playspace. And with zany co-op horror games like R.E.P.O, Phasmophobia, and Lethal Company all hitting it big in recent years, who can blame a tiny team for trying to turn their single-player success into a multiplayer hit with Don't Scream Together? Don't Starve did it nearly ten years ago now.

Well, that's what five guys (no, not that one) attempted to do this week. Don't Scream Together - an online co-op found footage-style survival horror game from Digital Cybercherries in which "even a whimper" resets the game - landed to largely negative reviews. Simply put, it's a game that relies on voice chat between its players. And just like how every PC configuration is different (hence why performance optimization is such a common frustration), so too are microphone setups.

This was obviously a-okay during testing between the tiny band of developers. They knew their own rigs. But once the game was in the hands of the many, they found out the hard way that "microphone calibration behaved differently across setups." As someone who still has issues with Discord cutting me off mid-sentence, boy, could I have seen this coming a mile away. There's also the issue that "some players felt confused by mechanics we thought were clear." Now, I doubt this is a riff on the IQ of the average gamer, but a wakeup call to the team about the importance of stepping out of your bubble from time to time.

But after some humbling words from marketer turned indie developer Joe Henson about listening to your community and not getting bogged down by the vocal minority who are a quick to label a misguided developer as a greedy sneak, the game has not only managed to sell 100,000 copies in a couple of days, but has climbed up the Steam review ratings, too. A whopping 60,000 of those sales came in on day one, and while we don't know whether that factors in refunds, selling an extra 40,000 on your second day with a 'mostly negative' or 'mixed' marker slapped at the top of your store page sounds like a miracle to me.

Sure, it's at 'mixed,' right now, which still isn't the best first impression, but getting out of 'mostly negative' territory after one terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day is quite the achievement. "Some even updated their reviews after seeing how quickly we responded," says Joe on LinkedIn, as part of a lengthy post discussing the feedback from players.

"People do not lose trust because a game has problems. They lose trust when developers pretend those problems are not there. So we decided to face everything head on." And, come on, it's not like you can really rip people off in the age of Steam refunds anyway. If your core mechanic doesn't work when it's scaled up from your sample size of five to literally thousands, they'll figure that out long before the refund window closes. Chill out, folks.

Anyway, rather than run from their problems, Digital Cybercherries even took to Steam (and LinkedIn) to discuss in detail what went wrong. A first patch addressing several core complaints arrived after just one day, and was followed by the team working to fix a microphone issue that resulted in "a huge influx of players reporting strange audio issues." Which, when the very first gameplay video on the Steam page begins with a player hearing things the others maybe can't, you have to admit is rather ironic.

"All five of us have been up since the early hours," he starts, "but after a full day of digging, we believe we finally found the root cause. It turns out that much of the instability and distortion was caused by the Windows 11 Audio Enhancements system. We are using a slightly older version of UE5 that predates the recent changes Microsoft introduced, and because of that the engine was not automatically handling the behaviour introduced in the May update." Given this year has given games plenty of reasons to dunk on either Windows 11 or Unreal Engine 5, getting the chance to call out both in one sentence has to feel good. You know, in a bittersweet kind of way.

"Within the first day, we released several hotfixes and our first major update," with a goal in mind to make mic calibration "clearer, easier and simply better, so players can get the intended experience without feeling lost before the game even begins." With the path forward now relatively clear, Henson has also said he'll be "going through each review from players affected and letting you know that the fix is now live." So if you notice a little bell at the top of your Steam client, don't think you just sold that silly CSGO knife skin. It's just Joe.

Don't Scream Together is 38% off on Steam until Wednesday December 10, so expect to pay just $4.95 / £4.14. If you love a good redemption story and appreciate Henson sharing a photo of his dog (and laundry), you can get it here. Even when the introductory offer ends, it's still far cheaper than a Five Guys (yes, that one this time).