Imagine a first person shooter with no menus. You just start up the game, and you’re suddenly in a death match with some other random people. There is no customization for the type of death match. The setting and the weapon selection are randomly generated for you. At the end, you are shown a victory/defeat screen with no buttons. After 10 seconds, you join another match.
There is no pause button, no adjustment for mouse sensitivity, and no configuration for the screen resolution or graphics quality.
No menus. Definitely not a menu game.
The game also has no jump button, no stairs, and basically no Y axis at all. Definitely not a parkour game.
I’ve played Doom, Doom 2, and Doom 64. Their engines lack room-over-room architecture, but they do have a Y axis, and some parkour where you run from platform to platform (without jumping). They all have a menu.
No, it’s not dead. The number of players is irrelevant.
A “dead game” is a game that needs work but is not under any development. It could be in Early Access, and incomplete. Or, it could be released, but still incomplete (looking at you, 7 Days to Die). Or, it could be an MMO that needs ongoing server maintenance, but they shut the servers down.
A game that is being worked on and making good progress isn’t dead. A game that is complete and relatively bug-free, but not being worked on, is not dead. An MMO getting no new content, but just enough labor to keep the lights on and the servers up, is not dead.
I guess an MMO or multiplayer game that has mandatory multiplayer aspects could be considered Dead if there aren’t enough players available to reasonably play the game. But Palworld is a single player game, or co-op with friends, not really an MMO.
There are two types of games (lemmy.world) angielski
Is Palworld a “dead game”? Who cares, says the game’s developer (arstechnica.com) angielski
Has also maintained an active playerbase for 1500+ years (startrek.website) angielski