What is friendslop? The co-op genre, explained by people who make it

Friendslop is a nickname for a kind of online co-op game: cheap, quick to join, a little rough around the edges, and built so that the fun comes from your friends more than from the game itself. Think Lethal Company, Content Warning, R.E.P.O., PEAK, or Dear Passengers, the airline game that went viral in 2026.

We make one (Dear Millionaires, a sinking ship for 4–8 players), so here is how the genre looks from the inside.

Where the word comes from

Nobody agrees who said it first. It began as a half-joke from players: “slop” because the games look cheap and come out fast, “friend” because you only ever play them with friends. The joke stuck because it is accurate, and by now it shows up in headlines, store pages and pitches, ours included.

It is not really an insult any more. Calling a game friendslop mostly means “buy it with your group on Friday night”.

What friendslop games have in common

• Low price, fast start. One friend buys it, the whole group buys it. You join with a room code and you are playing in a minute.
• Voice chat is the main feature. Proximity chat, walkie-talkies, a ship’s loudspeaker. Half the jokes are shouted.
• Physics turns mistakes into stories. A dropped tray, a slipped rope, a body flying across the room. Failure is funnier than success.
• One simple goal everyone fails at together. Meet the quota, film the monster, keep the plane in the air, keep the ship afloat.
• Short rounds that make clips. Every session leaves you with a 20-second video worth posting. That is why these games spread on TikTok and YouTube before most people have played them.

Why they keep going viral

A friendslop game sells itself in one clip. Nobody needs to understand a skill tree to laugh at four people failing to carry a sofa. Streamers play them with friends, their audiences buy them to play with their own friends, and the loop repeats. Small teams can make them, which is why so many of the big ones come from studios of a few people.

How we make ours

Dear Millionaires puts the crew of a cheap “luxury” liner in 1912 on the worst voyage of their lives. Our rules, from Devlog #1:

1. The ship is the main character. Every breakdown hits everyone, wherever they are: the lights die, the deck tilts, the band plays faster.
2. Repairs are physical. No menu mini-games. You carry coal, throw buckets, plug leaks with deckchairs.
3. Friendship is optional. You can knock a colleague out, take their pass and pocket their tips. In a blackout nobody sees who did it.

That last one is our own twist on the genre. Most friendslop is about helping each other. Ours is about helping each other right up until the lifeboat starts charging for seats.

See Dear Millionaires, or join the playtest if you have a group of four or more.

Is friendslop a genre?

Not officially. Stores file these games under online co-op, multiplayer, party, physics or horror. Friendslop describes how you play them, not what happens in them.

What are the best friendslop games?

Lethal Company, R.E.P.O., PEAK and Content Warning are the ones most people mean. If you are here because of Dear Passengers, we wrote a whole list: games like Dear Passengers.