What do a talking box, a haunted house cleaning sim, Unity, and a case of itchy developer fingers have in common? Not much—unless you’re semiwork, the brilliantly weird minds behind the surprise co-op horror hit, R.E.P.O. If you’ve been watching YouTube or Steam lately, chances are you’ve seen players screaming their way through this chaos simulator wrapped in a horror bow. But how did it even come to life?
Well, buckle up because the origin story is just as chaotic and lovable as the game itself.
From Post-Launch Burnout to “Let’s Fail Quickly”
The team at semiwork had just wrapped up Voidigo, a game that took them six years to complete. Naturally, they went on break—until about three weeks later, when dev Axel got the dreaded game dev version of the fidgets: itchy fingers. Despite having zero Unity experience, Axel jumped into a new project. And while Voidigo’s launch wasn’t a financial win, the team didn’t let that stop them. In fact, they leaned in harder.
“We can’t take the next step. We did it anyway. So let’s just fail quickly and get it over with.”
— Walter, semiwork developer and certified mad lad
Cleaning Sim? Horror Game? Jumpscare Chaos? All of the Above?
Enter Project Clean—the very earliest version of what would become R.E.P.O. Originally, the idea was a cleaning game where every task was a minigame and each level featured a spooky monster—like Headman, who’s still lurking in the final build of R.E.P.O. It started morphing into a found-footage-style jumpscare sim, and the devs were loving it… until they asked the obvious question:
“What if it was multiplayer?”
Boom—Project Clean 2.0. But things didn’t get easier.
The devs scrapped the cleaning angle because it kept players too isolated from each other—kinda killing the multiplayer vibe. Then it turned into a moving game…which had the same problem. So they did what any reasonable team would do: pivot to tax collection!
Yep. Your job became repossessing magical items, relics, and possibly cursed knick-knacks from nightmare-infested properties. Sound familiar? The R.E.P.O. vibes are slowly coming together!
Boxes, Bots, and Monstrous Upgrades
In the beginning, semibots were literally just boxes stacked on boxes (adorable, but clunky). Over time, they evolved into the lovable, flappy-headed, bug-eyed cuties we know and play with today. Even the giant vacuum mechanic was added as a quality-of-life feature so players didn’t have to constantly run back to base—cough Lethal Company cough.
And because one monster clearly wasn’t enough, the devs just said, “Why not add more?” So they did. And they kept going. Now, we have even more monsters to run from while carrying pricey items that will make us cry when they break. R.E.P.O. devs, diamonds are not supposed to break that easily!
Still New to Unity… But Crushing It Anyway
Despite being total newcomers to Unity, the semiwork devs are learning at an insane pace. They’ve confirmed the first big update will take a while, but that’s because they want to do it right. Once they get past the learning curve, updates should roll out faster.
Bonus? If you’re one of the people who actually liked the original solo concept (respect), the R.E.P.O. single-player mode will scratch that itch. But if you prefer team chaos, multiplayer supports up to six players, so grab your crew.
Final Thoughts: The Weirdest Origins for One of 2025’s Best Co-op Games
For a game that started with a wild mix of horror cleaning, moving boxes, and someone yelling “What if it was taxes?!”—R.E.P.O. is doing something really special. The devs at semiwork took a chance with Unity, followed their strange little ideas, and ended up delivering one of the most unique co-op horror sims on the market.
If this is what they’re doing as beginners, just wait until that first full update lands. Spoiler alert: our socks? Already off.
