Yup… It looked like a really bad attempt at photo realism in 2024. At this point you either need to use cartoon-like graphics or some sort or actually pull off the photo realism.
It was pretty obvious that game was never going to reach either of those marks.
I was definitely excited for the prospect of a Sim’s competitor, but this wasn’t going to be it… I think they did the right thing pulling the plug.
No idea what that means, but I do know the devs of this game also made War for The Overworld and they did a fantastic job of making and maintaining it.
I’d highly recommend their studio… and if this is the type of game you’re interested in, you should definitely check it out!
I mean, the purchasing model was fine. It was like any other game store. It’s just it was a new service and lots of people already had existing libraries they wanted to take with them … which just isn’t how that sort of thing normally works. Particularly with the way Google had it designed so that you could play purchased games without a subscription.
This reminds me of the new game Andrew Gower and his brothers have been working on, Brighter Shores. It’s a pure passion project based on a from scratch game engine that was created to make programming (even massively) multiplayer online games much easier.
The goal isn’t profit but rather, to have fun, and make a cool enjoyable game. He’s said they’ve made more than enough money from the sale of Jagex and RuneScape back in the day (which FWIW, he regrets that sale and a lot of what has happened at Jagex/to RuneScape).
I love to see game developers (and people in general that … “make it” and then go “you know what, I do have enough”).
Yes, but presumably you have accounts with those games? If not, you can play with people on those platforms but you can’t play with specific people on those platforms (e.g. a friend on the platform – which is the bigger deal in my mind with crossplay).
Like, the PSN account is the equivalent of a Bungie, Paradox, or Crytek account, something that allows the game developer to maintain a cross platform friends list? No?
I suppose they could use a room code invite system for crossplay but that’s way less convenient.
I never got into Hell Divers because it legit would not run on my system so I’m not super up on all the details but that’s been my impression of why they might want it.
Either way… With all the negative feedback I’m surprised they’re not screaming from the rooftops “we’ll do something else!” I understand Sony is tying their hands as well though.
Yeah… For battle royal and extraction shooters I think it would also be pretty hard to come close to the experience on private servers.
Granted, I wouldn’t mind being able to play e.g. Hunt Showdown with some friends on a private server/in a private match. It wouldn’t be what it is today, but it could still be fun.
It’s not like games with large populations are really getting shut down anyways. The games that are killed are already dead for most people. I really only am bothered by it when it’s a clearly single player/offline friendly game.
I liked it when it was first a thing and you’d see huge crowds of people in their early twenties out in parks and things … but I don’t think I ever really liked the game itself.