A month ago, as the world was preparing to prank one another, Content Warning made its entrance into 2024’s gaming scene as the perfect April Fools’ joke. Landfall has a tradition of dropping its games on April 1, but this time, the drop turned out to be a hit on Steam, continuing the trend of gamers getting blessed with amazing indie titles this year.
What started off as a little bit of humor turned into something bigger as the game was launched for free, attracting many players towards it, and it became more successful than anyone could’ve imagined.
Despite Being Free on Day 1, Content Warning Is Performing Beyond Expectations
We had the pleasure of having a conversation with the head of communications at Landfall, Hanna Fogelberg, who stated that it was natural for things to get “hectic” at the studio after the success of Content Warning. Since this wasn’t the first time that the publisher was launching a game on April Fool’s Day, there weren’t many expectations from the survival-horror title to become as big as it did, resulting in an overwhelming amount of traffic towards it.
The genre was uncharted territory for Landfall, before which it focused on “physics games” like Stick Fight, but with its latest launch on Steam, the publisher’s popularity skyrocketed.
“We managed to get 6.6M people to claim the game that first day,” stated Fogelberg regarding the level of traction that Content Warning garnered thanks to its fresh spin on the genre that it provided for free on April 1. The communications head confirmed that Landfall’s title has sold over 1.5 million copies after it received a price tag the next day, as the game’s currently priced at $4.49 on Steam.
Considering the large player influx and it being a multiplayer title, the studio has to ensure constant updates for its game, so keeping up is proving to be a challenge.
Landfall Has a History of Dropping Free Games on April Fools’ Day
Fogelberg looked back at another year during which it tried doing something similar to Content Warning, with 2018’s Totally Accurate Battlegrounds also being available for free on April Fools’ Day. “That time it went really well too,” said the communications head, as the game attracted “about 3 million people” in two days.
Landfall thinks of April 1 “as a day of celebration” for its community, resulting in its tradition becoming an annual occurrence.
Content Warning has put Landfall on gamers’ radars, and while talking about what the future holds for the studio, Fogelberg said the priority is “to figure out how that could work on consoles,” since the title is exclusively available on Steam till now.
Are you one of the millions of players who have checked Content Warning out? Let us know your experience in the comments!
