5 years ago, this $5 PS1-style horror game went viral for turning retail work into even more of a hellscape, and it's finally releasing on Steam next month

Screenshot from Night of the Consumers, showing a retail customer in crouches walking toward the camera through a video game aisle.
(Image credit: Germfood)

Night of the Consumers is an old-school-style horror game that turns retail customers into creatures scarier than the walking dead (they don't act any differently than their real-life counterparts, of course, they're just polygonal this time), and the viral indie fina🧸lly has a proper release date.

Night of the Consumers first dropped on Itch.io in 2020 with a kind of unofficial early access release. "Note: This game is a work in progress. If you purchase the game yo♋u will receiv🅺e any future updates for free," the reads. But it was still compelling enough to go absolutely viral on .

clicks. Talk about momentum.

Developer Germfood finally announced a release date for their long-awaited "Retail Is Hell" sim earlier this w🧸eek, though. Night of the Consumers 💦properly launches on Steam on July 11.

NIGH🐼T OF THE CONSUMERS ꦆ- Release Date Trailer - YouTube NIGHT OF THE CONSUMERS - Release Date Trailer - YouTube

The gist is that you're working a retail shift, which should be horrifying enough as a concept. You're mopping up vomit and restocking shelves and frantically juggling a million chores and trying to 🐽avoid the hungry customer༒s limping around looking for help.

Need more? OK, OK. If a cursed-looking consumer spots you, they'll zoom toward you with the speed of a supernatural entity and ask you for directions - shudder - as if the store's banners are up for no reason. Take too long to finish all youꦕr tasks and it's game over.

Anyone with retail experience will know how to survive the night shift with your job intact: pretend you can't hear ♛the groans of a hu♕ngry customer, throw a box of beers at their face, and run away to the staff room until they move on. "With the clock ticking down, you'll have to resort to more extreme measures to ensure you finish your daily tasks and not upset The Manager," the teases. Bonus trivia: what the game looked like in its earliest days.

In the meantime, here's a list of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best horror games ever made or you can look to the future with our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming indie games of 2025 guide.

Kaan freelances for various websites including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that's vaguely silly. Also has an ✤English Literature and Film Studies degree that he'll soon forget.

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