One of the main reasons Lethal Company became one of Steam‘s biggest co-op horror stories is because it took what could have been a complicated, inaccessible idea and turned it into something that almost anyone could easily understand. It gave groups of friends a simple job, sent them into disgusting moons for scrap, and let proximity chat turn every horrible little mistake into the kind of moment they would then want to share with their followers on social media. There’s a reason that game blew up the way it did, but another co-op horror game coming soon to Steam, The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu, is interesting because it seems to understand the one place that kind of co-op horror can eventually start to run out of gas.
The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu is coming to Steam on July 15, 2026, and ACE Team’s new co-op horror game feels like it’s walking straight through the door that Lethal Company unabashedly broke down. The difference, though, is that this isn’t another goofy scrap run where the danger eventually becomes something to laugh about. Rather, The Mound seems built around the idea that a squad should never get comfortable enough to laugh the horror away, and that might be the exact fix this corner of the genre needs.
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What The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu Is
The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu is a first-person co-op horror game about explorers pushing into a cursed jungle in search of treasure, missing people, and probably a few ancient horrors they would have been much better off avoiding. Players launch expeditions from a ship, choose their gear, head into the jungle, and try to come back with something valuable before the whole run falls apart. It might sound like a pretty familiar extraction shooter setup at first, but the setting and tone make it feel a lot more miserable in the best way.
Who’s That Character?
Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.
Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.
Easy (7.5s)Medium (5.0s)Hard (2.5s)Permadeath (2.5s)
The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu’s Key Features
- FOUR-PLAYER CO-OP HORROR expeditions.
- CURSED JUNGLE filled with Lovecraftian threats.
- TREASURE HUNTING, contracts, rescues, and extraction-style objectives.
- 16TH-CENTURY WEAPONS like pistols, bows, axes, and blades.
- SLOWER COMBAT where reloading and firing actually feel risky.
- LIMITED RESOURCES and scarce ammunition.
- SANITY-BASED HALLUCINATIONS that distort what players see.
- ALLIES WHO CAN LOOK LIKE ENEMIES under the right conditions.
- SHIP HUB where players prepare for the next expedition.
- WORLD THAT GETS WORSE the longer players push their luck.
The strongest thing The Mound has going for it right now is how unpleasant it looks. It’s not bad unpleasant, but the good kind of unpleasant that gives horror games the atmosphere and tone they arguably need. It’s the kind of unpleasant where you don’t want to take another step forward, but you know you don’t really have a choice because you need the loot around that foreboding corner in front of you.
The thing is, a lot of co-op horror games lose something once players figure them out. The first few runs are terrifying because nobody knows what anything is, everyone is yelling over each other, and one weird noise can make the whole group lose its mind. But then, everyone starts learning the rules, the tricks to overcoming danger, and the best routes to take, and suddenly the scary thing in the corner becomes “that enemy” with “that behavior” that the whole group knows how to avoid—or, at the very least, not be afraid of.
The strongest thing The Mound has going for it right now is how unpleasant it looks.
The Mound seems to have a pretty smart answer to that problem, because it goes after the squad’s confidence more than anything else. A monster in the jungle is one thing, but a friend who suddenly looks like a monster is something else entirely and ultimately produces a different kind of panic. Once players start second-guessing what they see, what they hear, and who is standing next to them, the whole expedition can fall apart before anyone even knows what went wrong.
The Mound‘s period weapons should, theoretically, push that idea even further. A musket or pistol in this kind of game is loud, slow, limited, and probably going to make everyone regret using it the second the shot goes off. Reloading in a foggy jungle while something is closing in sounds like a miserable way to almost die, but a game like The Mound needs combat that feels awkward and clunky because clean combat would make the whole thing too manageable. Players arguably should feel like every noise they make probably just made the situation worse and every reload is taking too long because, of course, that’s when the jungle decided to have its way with them.
All of that gives The Mound something far more than another co-op horror game where friends scream at monsters (and each other) for a few hours. The real scare seems to come from watching the squad slowly become less reliable as the expedition drags on. If that holds up across full runs in-game, The Mound could have the kind of dread that a game like Lethal Company start to lose once everyone knows how to turn horror into little more than a memorable punchline.
The Mound Could Fix Lethal Company’s Biggest Flaw
Lethal Company‘s biggest flaw comes down to the fact that once players know what they’re doing, the whole experience is suddenly less frightening and more funny. Of course, that’s a huge part of why it became so popular in the first place, so that doesn’t mean at all that the game stops being good once it becomes a bit. Lethal Company is great at ensuring a run goes wrong in the dumbest way possible, but maybe it’s too great at it.
Guess the games from the emojis.
Guess the games from the emojis.
Easy (120s)Medium (90s)Hard (60s)
After enough runs, the fear that Lethal Company somewhat relies on starts to wear down, and even what was once hilarious becomes normal. Once players are familiar with the routine, what started as a horror game with spontaneous comedy feels like a stage where everyone gets to be a stand-up comedian. At that point, disasters are manufactured in an effort to force a laugh, and it begins losing the spark that initially made its player count spike.
In fact, at the time of writing, Lethal Company‘s player count is down to an average of around 4,000 players, according to SteamDB, which is under 4% of its peak player count. Sure, the game launched a little over two years ago, and player counts naturally dwindle over that period of time. But the argument remains that when a game founded on something as feeble as spontaneous comedy becomes familiar, the rug is pulled out from under it and it loses its footing.
The Mound’s Sanity Mechanics Could Make Fear Last Longer
The Mound, on the other hand, appears to be going for a different kind of co-op horror with mechanics that don’t rely so much on cracking a smile. It still has the group expedition structure of Lethal Company, the same pressure to get in and get out, and the obvious possibility of everything going on at once. However, the tone is much less goofy, and the mechanics seem like they’re designed to keep players from turning every failure into a laugh.
The Mound‘s sanity mechanics are probably the biggest part of that. As players spend more time in the jungle and encounter more of its Lovecraftian horrors, their sanity starts to slip, and the game begins messing with what they can actually trust. One player might see a teammate as a monster, run into an enemy disguised as an ally, hear something that is not really there, or see danger in the environment that the rest of the squad cannot confirm. Even something as basic as the ground beneath a player’s feet can become unreliable, with previews showing that a harmless-looking path may actually be a deadly pit.
Lethal Company‘s biggest flaw comes down to the fact that once players know what they’re doing, the whole experience is suddenly less frightening and more funny.
Where Lethal Company gives players a situation that can become a joke once the group understands it, The Mound seems more interested in making sure that no one feels safe, regardless of how well they understand the rules. Where Lethal Company is at its best when friends are ruining each other’s shift, The Mound may be at its best when everyone’s sanity goes down the tube. It sounds like a small difference, sure, but for co-op horror, it’s actually a massive one.
Of course, The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu still has to prove all of this works when players are actually running expeditions over and over again. A sanity system can sound brilliant on paper and still become predictable if the same tricks repeat too often, so ACE Team has to make sure the jungle stays dangerous after the first few hours. But as a direct answer to the way Lethal Company‘s horror can slowly turn into a group comedy routine, The Mound seems to have the right idea in making everyone on the squad stop trusting themselves entirely.
The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu launches on Steam on July 15, 2026. A playable demo is currently available for download.
