Tag: Early Access

[Video] Twitch Plays The Outer Worlds


It was bound to happen eventually.

This week marks the launch of The Outer Worlds, but if you want to play the game you can do so right now…Sort of. Being the crazy people they are, Obsidian Entertainment has decided to throw The Outer Worlds up for the world to play…on Twitch. This technically makes The Outer Worlds the first pre-release game to be given the Twitch Plays treatment.

Streaming is going on right now. You can head over to the Obsidian Twitch channel and play along in the chat yourself. Create the kind of playthrough that even Polygon would be proud of.

Column: Planetside Arena and the Friday Night Whatevers


It’s Friday night! I’m playing a few rounds of H1Z1 to get my anger on before throwing my Gamefly rental of Batman vs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for a good weekend film to watch.

I’m going to tell you my wonderful readers what I told Daybreak before Planetside Arena launched into Early Access this week: It’s a neat concept that definitely has something going for it, but your biggest struggle is going to be convincing people to play it. What I didn’t tell them because I didn’t want to seem to blunt or immediately burn bridges with the new PR people (the old ones stopped talking to me) is that they have an uphill battle for two reasons: First, they are Daybreak Game Company. Second, it’s a free to play battle royale game.

I’ll be frank; Daybreak Game Company doesn’t have a great reputation as far as battle royale games go considering how badly they managed to mess up Z1 Battle Royale and H1Z1 and grasp failure from the hands of market dominance in both cases. There are a lot of people still very angry about Daybreak’s continued mismanagement of the PS4 H1Z1 and I should know. I’m one of them. Expect an H1Z1 season 5 roundup at some point in the future. Actually Daybreak doesn’t have a great reputation period. It just seems like large swaths of people that they’ve come across have come away feeling burned in one way or another. Everquest players, Planetside players, H1Z1 players, the ones hanging on to those games that shut down like ten years ago. All of them. Daybreak couldn’t have a lower public perception if John Smedley was still employed and inviting people to DDOS the servers again.

Second; it’s a free to play battle royale game in a market full to the brim. Sure, Planetside Arena has massive battles with upwards of 300 people. Is it filling them up? Nah. We’re in the opening Friday night and the game is having trouble keeping above 700 people concurrently. There are over 1,300 people playing Planetside 2, nearly double the amount in Planetside Arena and one of those games is seven years old while the other should be getting its early access launch rush. Over on the Twitch side of things, Planetside Arena has 434 viewers as of this publishing. You know what has more? H1Z1. So people aren’t playing and they aren’t really interested in watching and again, we’re in weekend #1.

And ultimately Planetside Arena isn’t even that bad of a game, which is why I’m sitting here typing about it at nearly 1am on a Saturday when I could be doing weekend stuff like sleeping. My big fear with Planetside Arena is that it would release to a shrug and a “whatever,” and that appears to be exactly what is happening. Who knows, maybe Daybreak can pull it around and convince people to actually play the game. They haven’t managed it with the streamers, but after all this is just weekend #1 and who ever said you only get one chance at a launch?

Oh right.

Planetside Arena Launches On Steam


Planetside Arena is here. The battle royale spinoff by Daybreak Game Company launched today, September 19, 2019 and is available completely free to play.

Early Access launches with squad mode (12 player teams) and teams mode (3 players per team) with matches up to 300 players. The main call of Planetside Arena, the gargantuan massive clash mode, will be available in Q2 2020 when the game fully launches and will feature matches of up to 1,000 people. Hopefully the Daybreak team can keep the ball rolling until that time.

Check it out at the link below.

Source: Steam

[Video] Legends of Aria Launch Trailer


Today’s video comes to us from Legends of Aria, an MMORPG in the same vein as Ultima Online that just so happens to be launching on Steam as we speak. Now available in Early Access, you can pick up the sandbox game with a 34% discount, at $19.79 USD. Check out the new bard skill line, the new equipment enchanting system, or even the new wilderness.

Or you can check out the trailer below.

Legends of Aria Hits Steam August 6


If you need Legends of Aria to release on Steam and preferably before August 7, then you have hit a stroke of very specific luck.

Citadel Studios announced today that the global launch of the hit MMO Legends of Aria is coming sooner than you think: August 6. Legends of Aria bills itself as a modern take on classic MMORPGs such as Ultima Online and Eve Online, and is a living breathing world shaped by its players. While much of the game world is safe from the harsh life of open world PvP, lawless regions still exist inhabited by those looking to make your day that much worse.

“Not only have we added a new playable skillset in the Bard and a whole new armor and weapon enchanting system to make the crafters in our community even more important, but we’re making the world of Aria a much friendlier place to live,” said Derek Brinkmann, CEO. “We’re ecstatic to finally be launching Legends of Aria on Steam after so much hard work and love were poured into the game. We cannot wait for MMO players of all sorts to join us on our journey.”

Legends of Aria will launch into Early Access on Steam on August 6. New features include the bard class as well as equipment enhancement, rulesets, a fresh start server, an optional premium subscription, quality of life improvements, and much more. Check out the official website for more information.

Survived By Is Being Survived By Everything Else, Sunsetting In April


Early Access bullet-hell roguelite Survived By has been officially declared deceased. Human Head Studios announced the impending closure today with supporters receiving full refunds. The title released on December 5, 2018, and unfortunately just hasn’t gone as well as Human Head had planned. Steam Charts shows that Survived By launched to a peak of 2,500 players in December which quickly plummeted to 369 in January and slightly over 100 in the last month. As of this publishing there were 13 people online.

The announcement has been posted below for brevity.

After much deliberation and sadness, beginning today, we will be ceasing development of Survived By. We greatly appreciate the time you’ve spent playing Survived By since our launch in Closed Beta and all of the feedback you’ve provided.

This decision hasn’t come easily. We still believe in the core idea of Survived By, but after careful consideration of the game’s progress since its inception, we feel we won’t be able to reach the vision we originally conceived.

We plan to keep the Survived By servers up until April 19th, 2019 and disabling all in-game real money purchases later today. To anyone who has supported Survived By’s development, we’ll be giving full automatic refunds to everyone who has ever purchased items or packs in the coming weeks.

Thank you all, Ancestors.

–The Survived By team

Source: Steam

ATLAS Hits Steam To Mostly Negative Reviews


ATLAS is “the ultimate survival MMO of unprecedented scale with 40,000+ simultaneous players in the same world.” At least, that’s how it was advertised by Grapeshot Games. Following multiple last minute delays, ATLAS hit Steam Early Access on December 22 and early access is exactly where it will stay for a good long time.

But Steam users aren’t impressed. The game currently sits at a mostly negative 22% positive despite approximately thirty seven thousand people logged in and playing at 10am on Christmas Eve. People are citing ATLAS as effectively being a DLC item that was spun off into its own game, compounding issues revolving around latency, connection, and various other bugs.

One player stumbled upon a hidden menu in ATLAS that is directly from ARK, as others in the same Reddit thread have been notating similarities between the two titles.

If you picked up ATLAS at launch, we’d like to know your experience.

Frostkeep Studios Unveils New Game Modes For Rend


Frostkeep Studios this week announced the debut of two new game modes for Rend on the public test realm.

The two game modes are called Classic and Exploration while the original game mode will be renamed Faction War. In classic mode, players will battle for supremacy by sieging each others’ bases, waging war, capturing territory, and collecting bounties. Exploration, meanwhile, is an entirely PvE mode that does not allow for player vs player combat. Both modes allow for players to join up in clans, however progression is per-character and there is no reputation system.

In addition to these two new modes, ascension points are seeing a change from per-server to globally tied to player accounts. AP gained from any activity will count for all servers.

For more details on upcoming Rend updates, check out the roadmap.

Steam: Rend Enters Early Access To Mostly Positive Reviews


Team-based survival game Rend has entered early access on Steam this week, and the reviews are so far looking mostly positive. Developed by Frostkeep Studios and published by the same, Rend is a game inspired by Norse mythology that tasks players with building their faction’s stronghold and then of course battling it out with both other players and creatures that populate the landscape.

Initial response has been positive, with the game gathering a 75% mostly positive rating on Steam.

“Since we first announced Rend, we have been developing it side by side with our players through Pre-Alpha and Alpha testing and by gathering feedback through Discord and our official channels,” said Jeremy Wood, co-founder and CEO, Frostkeep Studios. “Our goal has always been to transform the way players interact and participate in survival games while delivering on the fantasy that they have come to expect from this genre.”

Frostkeep Studios is an independent developer whose list of talent includes names from vanilla World of Warcraft, Overwatch, and League of Legends.

Fantasy Survival Game Rend To Launch In Early Access This Month


Frostkeep Studios has announced today that their title Rend will launch on Steam early access later this month. Dubbed a faction-based fantasy survival title, Rend was created by a studio formed from veteran Overwatch, World of Warcraft, and League of Legends developers. Rend introduces RPG mechanics, sandbox elements, win/loss conditions, and massive battles. Early Access will be available on July 31, with the game available for $29.99.

“Early access marks a pivotal moment for Frostkeep Studios,” said Jeremy Wood, co-founder and CEO, Frostkeep Studios. “We have been developing Rend side-by-side with our players since we first announced the game and are grateful for the invaluable feedback they provided to help shape Rend into what it has become today: the game they want to play.”