In the 1990s, American pharmaceutical companies introduced opioid-based pain medications into the wider market, which led to a decades-long national epidemic that has killed nearly 1,000,000 people. Painkillers explores the systemic failures across the government, pharmaceutical industry, and medical community that led to this tragedy. In the game, players act as executives of the pharmaceutical companies as they try to maximize their profits. They must avoid the attention of the federal government, the public’s outrage, and letting the human consequences of the epidemic itself get out of hand. This game is bleak, and it asks a lot of those who engage with it because this story is an important one. Painkillers is still under development, but will be available via crowdfunding in 2027.