Another week, another series of reminders that the video game industry is in serious trouble. Pillars once thought unshakeable are collapsing right and left as AI renders hardware unaffordable to all but those with deepest pockets. Whatever emerges from this period of terrible tumult will look vastly different from games as we know them now. For better and worse, it might look like Meccha Chameleon.
Meccha Chameleon is a multiplayer hide-and-seek game that came out on Steam earlier this month. It has already sold seven million copies, which its developers announced just two days after proclaiming that it had sold five million copies. For comparison’s sake, Resident Evil Requiem, now the fastest-selling game in the storied history of a reliable triple-A stalwart, hit the same milestone after two months. In other words, Meccha Chameleon is a sensation.
In videos and screenshots, it does not look… good. It also doesn’t need to, instead succeeding almost entirely on the strength of its core conceit: Hiding players can paint themselves to resemble objects in the environment, at which point they must then contort their in-game bodies and otherwise position themselves to look like they belong (relatable). Other players try to hunt them down. Creativity and quick thinking aren’t just rewarded; they’re required. This leads to ample tense moments and—especially when streamers are involved—antics. It’s top tier friendslop, to borrow a term I still don’t entirely love, but whatever, it caught on because ours is an era in which the most careless among us almost unilaterally dictate the terms.
I’ve mostly experienced Meccha Chameleon through Ryan “Northernlion” Letourneau and his cohort of streamer friends, a pretty ideal way to enjoy something like this unless you improbably have friends who are funnier than Northernlion. In the right hands, the game is a seedbed for tomfoolery, whether that means painting yourself to look like a hunk of meat and curling up on a banquet table plate or copying the colors of a horse statue and attempting to add a piece of—let’s say—anatomy to it that was not there before. Laughs abound. It’s simple, good-natured fun whether you’re watching or playing. Additionally, the iconography of featureless blob people doing their best to hide in plain sight has already lent itself to memes and IRL recreations.
Did the seemingly two-person team behind Meccha Chameleon expect or plan for any of this? Probably not. As of now, the game is pretty barebones. In all likelihood, its staying power will be limited. But neither is it bogged down by microtransactions or other means of predatory monetization. $5.99 gets you in the door, and then you’re good to go. It’s refreshingly reminiscent of a simpler time in that regard, with a custom mapmaking tool to boot.
On a day like today, I can’t help but fixate on Meccha Chameleon. In many ways, it’s yet another vaguely Among Us-inspired piece of disposable entertainment for the content age. I see ambitious, decade-spanning labors of collective blood, sweat, and tears like Destiny 2 disintegrate, and I think about how it’s highly unlikely that there will ever be another One Of Those, but there will almost certainly be another Dozen Or Hundred (Or Thousand???) Of These: small teams armed with a decent idea and some asset packs.
It’s not like one is coming at the expense of the other, either—at least, not directly. But what it means to make games—and therefore the allowable shape and scope of them—is changing. Greedy executives and shareholders have decided to do an extinction event to a segment of the medium rich with expertise and tradition, but which was never built with any sort of sustainability in mind. Triple-A looks more like a dinosaur by the day, with those in charge playing the part of the asteroid. It’s a horrific shame, both in terms of the damage done to developers' livelihoods, careers, and futures, and because—on a more selfish note—I personally find something like Destiny much more interesting than something like Meccha Chameleon.
But from the ashes, something else must rise, and even if it’s not my exact kind of thing, there’s hope to be found in that. People want to play. People want to have fun. People want to explore and experience new points of view. They always have and they always will, regardless of circumstance. That’s how you get a game that’s essentially just a dressed-up version of a playground favorite selling seven million units in the span of a couple weeks. This is not to say that indies will save the video game industry—to the extent that a singular video game industry even exists anymore—but smart, creative people will continue to ensure that games exist, even if they’re not backed by the financial might of ethically compromised mega-corporations.
And hey, Among Us gave the world Outersloth, one of a handful of newer publishers trying to facilitate more innovative, less destructive approaches to game development. Obviously, not every developer who hits the jackpot is gonna pay it forward in the same way, but a few might. These days, we have to take our wins where we can get them.
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Ash Parrish
