In the recent years, we’ve had a lot of coop horror games come out about scavenging locations for loot, and extracting with said loot while avoiding death. The game that really kicked off the trend, was Lethal Company back in 2023. Since then, we’ve seen an abundance in games mimicking what made Lethal Company successful, namely R.E.P.O., Content Warning, Yapyap and a few others.

Part of what makes these games so successful, is their ability to gain traction and popularity through social media. It makes sense then, that Grain Rot, a new game by Beck & Branch Games that follows in the footsteps of Lethal Company, has come out with a name that’s an obvious play on “Brain Rot”, which recently spread like wildfire on social media platforms like Tiktok. It’s seemingly a recipe for success, but is the game actually good or just an empty husk meant to appeal to fans of the genre — I think I’ve got the answer.

Scavenging the basements

Grain Rot takes place in a scorching desert, where you and your friends play as “sparks”: Souls that can possess and control robotic contraptions. The wastelands are too hot for your robotic bodies, and so you’ve sought shelter in a house. In this house, you meet a few NPCs that urge you to complete a variety of tasks — mostly involving scouring the deep layers of your basement for loot.

The deep layers are accessed by means of the elevator in your house, and are where you’ll be spending most of your time in Grain Rot. These layers vary in “biome” and the layouts are procedurally generated, as is usually the case in the genre. The overall gameplay of the deep layers is simple: Find valuable objects that you can grind down for coins, or destroy objects and furniture for crafting materials — all while avoiding monsters that’re trying to kill you.

While the gameplay in the deep layers is simple, the quests given by the NPCs in your house help in adding a little spice that keeps the game from getting stale too fast. While the quests aren’t anything groundbreaking, they do help in guiding the player towards unlocking new stuff for your house — I’ll get to these unlocks later. Another thing that keeps things fresh, is the random selection of modifiers that are chosen, every time you descend to the deep layers. Modifiers can do anything from adding more enemies to a layer, or force you to find a fuse hidden somewhere in the layer before you’re able to extract.

So many good ideas

All of which I’ve discussed this far, is pretty by the numbers for a game in this genre. That isn’t to say that Grain Rot doesn’t bring anything new to the table though. Actually, I think this game is filled to the brim with ideas that feel inspired, while also making a lot of sense for the gameplay loop.

Take for example the sparks. As mentioned earlier, these are the souls you play as that can possess and control robots. This could’ve very easily just been a lore thing, but instead, the developers went and made the spark really important to how the game plays. You can at any time leave your robot body, fly around the map, and possess and control other robot bodies – even your friends’!

Another idea that I love, is how progression works. Your house isn’t just a place to relax between runs, it’s also your stat sheet that you spec points into by building furniture in different rooms using the materials found in the deep layers. Want more maximum health? Decorate the lobby. What about faster sprint speeds? Decorate the living room on the second floor.

There are even more good ideas in the game than those, and it left me wondering why other games in the genre haven’t done this stuff before. It’s not all perfect though, as some of the ideas do feel a little underutilised. Some of the enemies in particular are boring and don’t create those entertaining social scenarios that make these games so fun.

Conclusion

Grain Rot might not reinvent the genre, but it does present some really interesting ideas and a fun gameplay loop. I actually think the name does it a bit of a disservice, as there’s so much good stuff here, that comparing it to low-effort brain rot, just feels really ironic. While it does get stale after 12 hours or so, those 12 hours are really entertaining. If you can manage to convince a few friends, I definitely recommend giving Grain Rot a go.