Steam’s latest viral hit with a higher 24-hour player peak than Monster Hunter Wilds is a game about selling baggies of “OG Kush” to guys called Mick Lubbin

You know drugs? No, I’m not a cop. I swear. It’s just that they’re the central point of the latest indie game taking Steam by storm in a similar fashion to the likes of Lethal Company. It’s called Schedule 1, and it’s bagged a higher 24-hour player peak on the platform than the uber-popular Monster Hunter Wilds.

So, what is this new thing that’s the current hotness among streamers, YouTubers, and I assume people who like pretending they know what it’s like to live in a rough neigbourhood because they’ve seen Breaking Bad and have since had the phrase ‘we gotta cook’ stuck in their vocabulary. Well, it’s a sim-ish, co-op-having game that sees you play a small-time drug dealer trying to build an empire.

If that sounds flippant, sorry, it’s just how I write. It’s damn impressive that a game an Australian solo dev has built seemingly without using any dodgy stuff like AI currently boasts a higher 24-hour player peak on Steam than MonHun, according to SteamDB.

The numbers there are 414,166 for Schedule 1, which sits fifth in SteamDB’s most played games chart right now, and 283,162 for Wilds, which sits fifth. Wilds, of course, still has a big edge in terms of all-time peak, having hit over 1.3 million players around release. Schedule 1, meanwhile, currently heads up the top sellers list.

Much like a dad trying to work out what Roblox is and whether he should call the police, I’ve watched IGN play the first 16 minutes of Schedule 1 to get a feel for what it’s about. The answer is that it looks like a decent time, a mix between the kinds of vaguely GTA-ish naughtiness that are irrestistible to anyone who’s 12 or was once 12 and has never grown up (me) and the constant stream of kinda satisfying stuff to do that defines the most addictive simulation games.

I can see myself spending hours (in the video game, for the one FBI/MI5 agent who’s definitely reading this) spending hours growing plants, putting little leaves in pretty luxuriously-rendered plastic baggies, and then hoofing it over to an alley way outlined in a very transparently-worded text message so some putty-faced NPC called Mick or Kathy can buy their hit of (checks notes) “OG Kush”. Or cooking virtual meth.

I can doubly see that happening if it comes with the chance of having some mates play along, so we can yell at each other every time one of us bumbles into a cop while boasting pockets filled with enough greenery to stock a garden centre.

Weed, innit. There’s nothing more rock and roll than, er, sitting in your room pretending to be big into the drugs because you’re playing a game that looks a bit Robloxy. Have you tried this yet? No, not the OG Kush, Schedule 1 (again, cops, do not raid my house)! Let us know below!