Seven days. That's all it took for a brand-new co-op party game to muscle its way into Steam's top 15 most wishlisted titles, sitting at number 12 before most players had even seen a full trailer. The game in question features pilots barbecuing on the wing of a plane mid-flight, which tells you everything you need to know about the energy here.
What "friendslop" actually means for Steam numbers
The term "friendslop" gets thrown around a lot, but the wishlist data makes the case better than any definition could. These are games built around one specific pitch: get four friends in a call, turn your brains off, and watch everything go wrong in the funniest possible way. Goat Simulator did it. Totally Accurate Battle Simulator did it. Gamble With Your Friends did it so well it sold 1 million copies in a single week (check out the before you buy guide for Gamble With Your Friends if that one is still on your radar).
The formula works because it converts directly into social content. Someone clips a moment, posts it, and the wishlist counter ticks up without the developer spending a cent on paid promotion. A number 12 ranking after seven days, competing against titles with years of marketing behind them, is not a fluke.
The plane game and why it caught fire this fast
The game's Steam page imagery, specifically pilots casually grilling food on the exterior of an aircraft in flight, is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Before anyone has played a single minute, the concept alone communicates the entire experience: physics-based chaos, cooperative stupidity, and a premise absurd enough to be immediately shareable.
Here's the thing: Steam wishlists are not passive. Players who wishlist a game are telling the algorithm they want to be notified at launch, which means the 12th spot on that list represents genuine purchase intent, not just passive curiosity. For a game announced a week ago with no release date confirmed, that kind of conversion is the kind of signal publishers pay attention to.
The friendslop genre has also gotten considerably smarter about its Steam page presentation. Early entries in this space often had placeholder art and vague descriptions. The new wave, including this title, leads with the chaos immediately. Screenshots and GIFs show the most unhinged moments possible because that is what gets shared on Discord servers at 11pm when someone is trying to convince three friends to add something to their wishlist.
Why the co-op chaos market keeps expanding
The instinct might be to assume this space is getting crowded, but the numbers keep saying otherwise. Co-op party games have a shelf life problem in that players burn through them quickly, which actually creates demand for the next one rather than killing it. The cycle refreshes itself.
What most players miss is that friendslop titles rarely compete with each other directly. Someone who owns Gamble With Your Friends is exactly the kind of player who will wishlist the next absurd co-op game the moment it appears on their feed. The audience is not divided, it accumulates. If you want to understand how item value and progression work in games like these before spending money, the Gamble With Your Friends item tier list is worth a look as a reference point for how these games structure their loops.
The 12th spot also puts this game ahead of some titles with significantly larger marketing budgets and established fanbases. That gap closes over time as bigger games accumulate wishlists through sustained campaigns, but the opening week number is a genuine statement.
What happens next for this game
The key here is whether the developer can maintain momentum through to a release date announcement. Friendslop games that announce too early and then go quiet tend to bleed wishlists slowly. The ones that keep feeding the algorithm with short clips, beta access announcements, or even just regular Steam updates tend to hold their position.
A top 15 wishlist debut with no release date is a strong hand to play. The question is whether the team behind it knows how to play it. For players keeping tabs on the co-op space, our gaming guides hub covers the genre's biggest titles as they launch.
The plane is in the air. Now everyone wants to see what happens when it lands.
