With a Steam image of a stupid smiley face that made me initially ignore it when seeing it (the kind I would expect from some basic cheapo game), R.E.P.O. is actually pretty darn amusing and it's rocketing up the charts on Steam.
It runs out of the box on Linux with the latest Proton 9.0-4. It also works on Steam Deck but you'll need to change the controls in Steam Input (there's no proper controller support yet). If you enjoy games like Lethal Company, you'll probably quite like this one too. Hopefully it will have a longer life than KLETKA though.
Here you and up to 5 friends (6 total players) can run around together collecting valuables in various dark locations. It's a lot more on the silly side compared to Lethal Company and various other similarly styled co-op horror games that have appeared.
R.E.P.O. is all about the physics with you needing to be careful not to break your acquired valuables, or reduce their worth by smacking them into everything, especially when you're running for your life and hiding. I've lost count of the amount of loot I'm smashed to pieces. The characters are all pretty stupid looking too…
You have a little beam you shoot out to interact with everything from doors to valuable loot. Using this you'll fill up a special cart you'll be pushing around, to eventually push it into an extraction point to complete the level and earn some monies. A job that's easier said than done, as there's a lot of strange stuff going on that will make you jump, run for your life and maybe even let out a little squeal.
I'll admit seeing a bunch of little gnomes for the first time was creepy as hell, and when I realised they were moving and then they all suddenly turned to me and chased me — I did let out a little "aah!".
The vibe in this one is great, I actually like it a lot and look forward to pulling in some friends to play this with. Check out the release trailer below:

Direct Link
The Steam release (February 26th) in Early Access just rocketed up to 54,854 concurrent players in the last 24 hours, making it one of the most popular games on Steam. However, they were a bit unprepared for this and have forced the online play to be friends-only due to "hackers" jumping into games. So now they're also working on a matchmaking system and a server browser, which hopefully won't take too long. So for now, you have to have Steam friends to play it online.
Overall very enjoyable.
4 things that make it feel fairly different from Lethal Company:
- There's a big focus on hiding. In Lethal Company your only real option is to run away. In R.E.P.O. there's plenty of cover in every room, allowing you to stay close to most enemies.
- There's no time limit, making it overall less stressful and gives you more opportunity to wait for the right moment.
- The levels are structured in a relatively linear way and you have to bring items to dedicated checkpoints, requiring you to push further into the facility.
- The physics based mechanics are very fun and make the more expensive loot feel like a puzzle. We had some pretty rough situations to solve so far.
See more from me