If there’s a single throughline for the PC gaming year that was 2025, it’s finally accepting that the pursuit of fancy graphics just doesn’t make sense anymore.
Tech has hit a hard graphics plateau: raw generational updates are now nuanced upgrades measured in single-digit frame gains rather than evolutions anyone with eyes can appreciate, and the subsequent pivot to AI-generated frames and experimental hair follicles aren’t really revving anyone’s engines when those upgrades cost a month’s rent. Even if the latest hardware really was all that, the precarious AI bubble is locking normal humans out of it anyway.
It’s good timing, then, that cutting edge graphics are increasingly irrelevant to keeping up with the hobby. A bright spot of 2025 was the continued rise of “friendslop,” a cringey internet-spawned label for a broad genre of cooperative games designed for groups of friends.
Though it looks like it’s sticking, friendslop is a terrible name for these games, because it (perhaps unintentionally) lumps them in with a growing pile of low-effort games cranked out by anonymous Steam grifters every day, and of course, actual AI slop. The well-intentioned use of “slop” probably refers to the subgenre’s deliberate use of janky physics and ragdolls to conjure comedy. In REPO, navigating a valuable and fragile vase down narrow hallways is uncomfortable, awkward, and intense—much like actually moving a cherished piece of furniture from one house to another.
But there’s nothing sloppy about games with a simple premise, instantly learnable controls, and crucially, with an art direction that accommodates whatever hardware you have to play them on. To have all of that at once and still end up with a fun game is anything but low-effort.
So why does it have “slop” on the name? Should be Friendpeak
After Silksong, Lethal Company and Content Warning were my two most played games in 2025.
I agree that calling these low-poly multiplayer games “slop” is terrible, because there is clearly a ton of love and effort poured into them. I hope the name doesn’t catch on.
I agree that calling these low-poly multiplayer games “slop” is terrible, because there is clearly a ton of love and effort poured into them.
Depends on the game. Lethal Company? I wouldn’t call that slop at all. Content Warning? Yeah, no, that’s slop. It was a fun little jaunt to try it out for free, but that game felt so shallow and burned out on me so incredibly fast that if I had paid anything for it I’d probably have felt ripped off.
To me, “friendslop” doesn’t necessarily mean the game isn’t fun or has “bad graphics,” it instead means that it 1) relies heavily on friends to be fun and 2) has some element of feeling like either a cash-in or a low-effort project. I don’t count Lethal Company because it doesn’t have either issue for me. Content Warning, meanwhile, was worthless to me in singleplayer and relied so thoroughly on the camera as a gimmick that it feels like the epitome of the term. Hell, it was literally made as a break from a larger project, so I think it cinches the “low-effort” part, at least relative to other games.
R.E.P.O., however – which you didn’t mention but which I still have thoughts on – I’m torn on. On one hand, the gameplay is a more detailed and engaging form of what Lethal Company has, and it can easily be fun alone. On the other, the way semiwork interacts with their community in their news videos feels like Youtube engagement rot so strongly that it taints the game for me by extension; it (and their emoji abuse) makes me feel like the game has the “love and passion” of a dorm room dildo prank, even though it’s well-put-together enough that there’s no way that’s the case.
Edit: I should probably also add that it is absolutely possible for me to feel that a game does have love & passion behind its development, and yet still qualify to me as friendslop. I think the best way to explain this would be to liken it to a Youtuber who makes engaging and deep videos, but who also uses a lot of clickbait and algorithm-hacks to drive engagement too. It’s not that so much that the developer is being a bad or careless person so much as it is that the game itself has an ick about it, which is unfortunately always going to be extremely subjective and ill-defined. As another example: I called PEAK friendslop when I first played, softened up on that feeling over time (especially when the very excellent Mesa update hit), and then the feeling came right back when they announced some concert or other occurring in the game like they were Fortnite.
Yeah, I see many people using the name without apparent malice but it feels inappropriate. Slop is low effort bullshit designed to capture the biggest market for the lowest cost, with little artistic vision. I don’t get that impression from most, if any, of these games.
This is also the first I’ve ever heard the term in any context so I’m hesitant to believe the author when they say “it looks like it’s sticking”…
I’ve heard it previously, the first time I couldn’t help but crack up because the term was so petulant and asinine. ‘They’re playing cheap games with low res graphics with their friends and having fun, someone make them stop!!’ is the vibe I get every time I hear it, and it’s still a hilarious term to me.
GiantBomb had a “Best Friendslop” award this year.
I’ve heard it for a while now, and when I first heard it I know precisely what it meant with no explanation. It really is a “good” (linguistically only) word. The definition and usage is asenine and counter productive, however.
It’s unfortunately more widely used in the dev space too
I think it comes from a different place, unrelated to graphics. “Old” or “traditional” gamers are more and more getting turned off by games like among us, fall guys, and the like. Those are some early examples which popped off during the pandemic, but the “genre” of similar games is what is referred to by friendslop. Playing games with friends is fine, but many of these games would be entirely unplayable without friends, and rely substantially on interactions with friends to provide entertainment with only a loose framework to support that.
That itself isn’t necessarily bad, but the point where this turns into a problem is when a lot of these games fail or do not try to actually make good gameplay beyond that. Again, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that, I’m just describing why it exists.
There is a growing rift from the group of people that would be described as “gamers” in the 90’s, 2000’s and 10’s and the group of people that are described as gamers now, which is largely more casual than the first group. The former group is where most of the people who would use the term friendslop come from. They want games with substantial gameplay that doesn’t have to rely on social interaction, regardless if it relies on online multiplayer. The latter group is just having fun doing things with their friends, where 10, 20, or 30 years ago if they were the same age, they might have done in person while “gamers” at the time would still be playing video games.
So the “slop” part of it comes from the idea that game developers are churning out games that don’t provide much entertainment, and you’re supposed to “bring your own” fun in their framework. It also very much seems tied to the rise of youtubers or tick tockers playing these games, hyping up random social interactions and people see those 3 seconds and simply want to experience the (fake) reactions and emotions that are on display. The constant barrage of these games and reaction videos on social media is inescapable.
All of that being said, there’s no reason you can’t make a game that does all of that but does actually have good polished gameplay, but so many games chasing (and catching) this trend do not.
Let me reiterate 2 things: I don’t agree with the phrase. A game is a game and if it’s fun, it’s a good game. But also, it really has nothing to do with graphics. You can make friendslop with AAA graphics and it could fit in perfectly with all the other friendslop games.
Ah yeah that’s a good point. I think “gamers” used to be a more distinct group with a more distinct identity, nowadays it’s like saying “moviegoer”.
I think your explanation is pretty accurate and I agree with your point that it has nothing to do with graphics. however…
there’s no reason you can’t make a game that does all of that but does actually have good polished gameplay, but so many games chasing (and catching) this trend do not.
Any time I see someone say this, they always fail to actually provide any examples of games that fit this description. I know you aren’t defending the term but I just noticed that parallel between your description and the explanations provided by people who criticize these sort of games.
The first time I heard of the term, and when it started getting popular, was around the time PEAK released. At first glance, it seemed like the game fit the term, but after a bit people started realizing that it actually was a fun and well designed game that has some longevity. Ever since then, people who use the term negatively always concede that their prime example doesn’t even fit their criticism, but fail to provide a list of other examples.
It really makes me feel like it’s just people complaining about things for being popular, without any actual basis for their criticism.
I think among us is a great example of this, to take the first one that got popular. It’s just a form of werewolf, blood on the clock tower, town of Salem, etc. Just distilled and simplified and put onto phones and made accessible. The “gameplay” is that of a board game, just with a few moving pngs. I’d much rather play one of the games I listed above which has more engaging mechanics with the same premise. Among us is hyper simplified, and I believe it relied on social media and the pandemic and an extremely low bar to entry to gain snowballing popularity.
It’s not a “good” game in comparison to most of its competitors at the time. But its competitors weren’t as conducive to social media reactions and didn’t have that spark of luck at just the right time to start snowballing, or lacked the accessibility of simple mechanics.
I typically do not play these games, but I see a new one on a daily basis. The problem with naming and shaming is that someone who sees something they don’t like doesn’t investigate further, but starts to notice trends and patterns over time of the same “type of stuff” on their social media feeds (or suggestions from friends). My friends keep suggesting games like this as well. A couple of them were space themed, a few were horror themed, but most of them (and I investigated every single one at the time since a friend personally suggested them, but promptly forgot about them) were in the same genre of “mediocre but fun game clearly conducive to inciting TikTok reactions”
Edit: just to make a point on the other end, I think lethal company is a pretty great game. It’s immersive, pretty scary sometimes, the “manned ship with a computer” mechanic is unique and impactful, and specific interactions with each monster, item, role, map, and weather make for a bit of emergent gameplay here and there between the normal gameplay. It’s very good, even if I think it has a shorter than average shelf life before it gets old compared to most games I like. It ALSO is conducive to TikTok reactions, but it provides new and interesting mechanics of its own.
The Among Us devs didn’t rely on any virality for success, the game had been abandoned before it blew up
I know this and that they didn’t specifically design for it, but it was the reason for its success, and the community instantly took notice and started designing to replicate that specific phenomenon. The success itself relied on social media, not the devs. I bet if social media in the lockdown didn’t launch it into the stratosphere it would have stayed at its original level of success.
Agree! Without twitch and the lockdown the game would’ve quietly died
This feels like cope a bit, honestly. The thing about the current push for system requirements these days is it’s less about visual fidelity and more about saving development time. This is especially the case with ray tracing, with setups that are far easier to get passable lighting on. Not that there’s ever a fortunate time for exploding hardware prices, but it’s especially unfortunate that they hit while the most popular GPUs right now are 3060 and 4060s. Not exactly RT powerhouses. It would have been better for everyone involved if RT hardware was a generation ahead, and the “we want to spend less time on optimization” part of the push isn’t going to stop.
I don’t know if the AAA devs will hit the brakes a bit on visual fidelity in response to the hardware situation slowing down, but that and the gradual rise of handheld PCs will certainly create an opportunity for lower-spec games to find a market.
Don’t agree at all. If you’re limited on resources, you can certainly make an excellent game without intense graphics. But sophisticated graphics also can make a game. I often find myself in these types of games just wondering around and taking in the view and appreciating the artwork in it.
Of course a good game will also be efficient and not require a fucking $2k GPU to run properly. And with hardware prices going through the fucking roof it’s also good to ensure that your game will run at all on low end hardware.
It all comes down to personal preference.
But sophisticated graphics also can make a game.
This is not the case for any of my favorite games, for example.
It was not presented as personal preference. It was presented as “the pursuit of fancy graphics just doesn’t make sense anymore”.
It makes lots of sense, even if you don’t care for it.
the pursuit of fancy graphics just doesn’t make sense anymore
Their assertion is that fancy graphics doesn’t necessarily equal good gameplay, and the major industry players are focused on ever-increasing frame rates instead of game quality.
Nobody cares if your game is fully immersive and rendered down to the atomic scale if it is boring or the game mechanics are shite. Sure you can wander around and look at stuff and gasp at the physics, but unless the game is titled “Look around and enjoy it” , that’s not the point.
That’s not what they said.
Yeah, I am saying I think it comes down to personal preference, not arguing against your point.
sophisticated graphics also can make a game
I agree to an extent, but good graphics can’t save a game with bad gameplay.
I bet you’ve never heard “the game isn’t fun but I put hundreds of hours into it because it’s beautiful!”
In contrast, good gameplay can save a game with abysmal graphics.
I’m willing to bet money you’ve heard something around the lines of “it doesn’t look great but I just can’t stop playing!”
Right but that’s not what it says. It says “the pursuit of fancy graphics doesn’t make sense anymore”.
This is the case for many of the original NES games.
Yeah to say they dominated seems a bit extreme. Some people are mostly looking for a virtual activity to do with their friends, and for those people quality of the game itself is secondary in a lot of ways to the ability to play it with their chosen people.
Agreed, couch co-op games are doing well in general because they’re an easy hangout activity and only require one console/computer. Couch co-op has been out of vogue amongst the big publishers (I’m sure a fortnite player is more valuable to them) so people are using what’s available. The few by big publishers with nice graphics have been popular as well (split fiction, it takes two).
A bright spot of 2025 was the continued rise of “friendslop,” a cringey internet-spawned label for a broad genre of cooperative games designed for groups of friends.
This is the first time I’ve ever heard “friendslop” and I knew exactly what it was talking about.
At least the same guy doesn’t also use “boomer shooter”
Boomer shooter doesn’t sound too derogatory to me. Friendslop does.
Which is funny, because “boomer shooter” is literally named after a generic, derogatory term for “older people”
I prefer something descriptive instead of the inside-joke brain-rot nature of “boomer shooter.” Though now I’m sure people just think it means “loud noises”
Tech has hit a hard graphics plateau: raw generational updates are now nuanced upgrades measured in single-digit frame gains rather than evolutions anyone with eyes can appreciate
in my mind this happened a decade ago and people are only just now realizing that the emperor has no clothes
