The Headliners

Photojournalism in the middle of a kaiju invasion

The Headliners drops one to eight players into a city under siege by monstrous creatures, tasking them not with fighting or fleeing, but with getting the shot: snapping the most spectacular, headline-worthy photographs of the carnage without becoming part of the story themselves. It's a genre that's grown genuinely crowded since Lethal Company's breakout success, and based on the available English-language review sample of 4,282 reviews — 3,763 positive, 519 negative, landing at an overall Very Positive rating — reviewers consistently credit the game for carving out real distinctiveness within that crowd. "'The Headliners' VS 'Content Warning' — Headliners definitely has a lot better premise and setting. It's not just a generic, spooky, creepypasta, lovecraftian plane where you goof off over and over again. It's a lot more comparable to something like Cloverfield or Gantz. It's in a very urban, big-city environment with friendly civilians and military running around, and that really sets it apart," one reviewer writes, drawing a specific, useful comparison to the genre's most obvious recent touchstone.

One reviewer's vivid account of a typical session captures why that urban-disaster setting lands so well for fans of the format: "Imagine me walking through Times Square, boots on the ground, first responder to the impending invasion. Me and my buddy are grabbing photos of the action. Soldiers are fighting monsters. Civilians are being picked off the streets. Carnage everywhere you look! Suddenly, Kaiju level alien comes in and wipes out everyone and everything in its path." A separate reviewer frames the appeal for a specific audience directly: "Is Phasmophobia a little too scary for you to enjoy? Is Lethal Company a little too involved to get a good lobby going? If you answered yes to both of these questions, then I recommend you give this game a try. It's a little less mechanically dense than the games mentioned above."

A remarkable scope for a two-person team

A recurring, specific point of admiration across the sample concerns the game's development scale relative to its ambition. "Everyone having the ability to capture their own pictures and then review them after each mission adds a ton to the experience, I only wish there was a way to recover lost cameras and get the photos off them. Super impressive take on the genre and from a team of 2," one reviewer writes, explicitly crediting the small studio size as context for how impressive the finished product is. A separate reviewer makes a similar point while pushing back on dismissive comparisons to the genre's most famous entry: "While it seems similar to others of its style - Repo, Lethal Company etc - it does so many little things that elevate it to the game that has hooked our discord. So many items, features, or behaviors you question at first and then realize the role they play."

A serious, independently corroborated transparency concern

The most substantive criticism in this review sample concerns the use of AI-generated content, and it's worth taking seriously specifically because it's raised independently, in detailed terms, by multiple separate reviewers rather than resting on a single unverified account. "This game is quite fun overall, albeit it can be a bit repetitive even with the randomization each round. That being said, I have two major issues with The Headliners: 1) The use of AI isn't explicitly disclosed by the devs anywhere. 2) The game is horribly optimized," one detailed reviewer writes, treating the AI-disclosure issue as a primary, named reason for their negative recommendation rather than a passing aside. A separate reviewer reaches a similar conclusion independently, tying it specifically to a decline they've observed over time: "The use of AI is abundant and disappointing. This game is so much fun and has potential to be great. The new updates are fun, until you start to notice the amount of AI used. Nothing is more disappointing than a good game, with a lot of its own creativity being dumbed down by lazy AI images." That reviewer still recommends the game overall despite the concern, but frames it as a real, specific quality regression tied to recent content updates rather than a baseline complaint about the original release. Because this specific concern recurs independently across multiple detailed reviews rather than a single account, it carries more weight than similar allegations this lane has encountered elsewhere, and prospective buyers should weigh it accordingly.

A scoring system that doesn't always reward the best shot

A separate, more mechanical complaint concerns how the game's core photography-scoring system actually behaves in practice. "This game is great, amazing fun with friends, my only feedback for the developers is that the scoring system currently encourages selfies a little too heavily. It kind of sucks to set up an amazing shot of soldiers fighting alien monstrosities that looks like it could be a real front page shot, only to be beaten out by your mate dancing in front of an out of focus monster," one reviewer writes, identifying a specific tension between the game's stated creative premise — capturing genuinely great photojournalism — and what its scoring algorithm actually incentivizes in practice. A separate reviewer describes a related frustration with the same underlying system: "My highest point photos are often visually garbage and might be totally incomprehensible to look at, but I took them because I understand the game's system will give me a high score for things I knew mattered mechanically, rather than what looked good." That's a meaningful design gap for a game whose entire identity is built around photography as its central mechanic.

Optimization problems and thinning content

Beyond the AI and scoring concerns, technical performance draws real, specific criticism even from players who otherwise enjoy the game. The detailed reviewer quoted earlier elaborates on the optimization issue specifically: invasion and boss sequences reportedly send CPU and GPU usage and temperatures spiking dramatically, "despite my computer" exceeding the game's stated requirements by a wide margin. A separate, more content-focused complaint concerns the current lack of reasons to explore building interiors: "We need more reasons to go inside the buildings. Right now it makes sense to stay outside and get all the best big money shots. Need to make the inside have that big money incentive, as well, or it isn't worth it." Several reviewers frame the overall content volume as currently thin relative to the strength of the core idea: "Great concept, but needs more interiors, maps and monsters. For now 2.5 hours of fun, then gets old."

The achievement data supports a picture of real, if front-loaded, structural depth. Across 20 total achievements, early milestones sit at 65.1% and 51.7%, while the hardest, most demanding goals — perfect precision shots, top-tier award photographs — fall to under 1%. That's a genuine, wide spread, though the relatively fast drop-off after the first few achievements is broadly consistent with reviewer reports of the core loop losing steam once its systems are fully understood.

Where this leaves it

The Headliners brings a genuinely distinctive, well-realized setting to an increasingly crowded co-op horror genre, and its scope is legitimately impressive for a two-person development team. Its most serious problem, independently and specifically corroborated across multiple detailed reviews, is a lack of transparency around AI-generated content in the game and its updates — a real, credible concern rather than an isolated unverified claim — compounded by genuine optimization problems, a scoring system that doesn't always reward the photography skill it claims to celebrate, and content that several reviewers feel thins out after a handful of sessions. Worth a look for fans of the extraction-horror genre specifically drawn to its urban-disaster setting, with the AI-disclosure concern worth weighing directly rather than dismissing given how consistently it's raised.