NOTE: this is not an impassioned rant, nor am I interested in this spawning another rant-filled thread. I’m sure there will be more than ample avenues for that inevitable response, but this is a place for more measured responses to the current state of the game (launch).
This morning, less than 24 hours after the title launched, I finally resolved to do something that I had begun pondering the night before, after around 80 minutes of in-game time: I requested a refund from the Epic Store.
Before anyone goes leaping to any conclusions, I don’t think this game is “broken” in any respect, either technical or gameplay-wise. It has a lot of rough edges and kinks to be ironed out, but if you expect anything less than that in the current games market I think you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. I have no doubts regarding Illfonic’s commitment to the game and reverence of the IP overall, I trust they will see to it that the game is refined into much better shape over the coming months and (hopefully) years. There is certainly compelling content here, and a lot of scope for expanding that vision to deliver a fun experience for the fans.
So why did I request a refund?
The short answer is, it was a confluence of factors, primarily arising from the inherent weaknesses of a multiplayer-only game of this nature and the extent to which they overlap with serious shortcomings in the (less-than-)Epic Game Store. At this point I should admit that, while I welcome greater competition and transparency in the digital games marketplace, I have serious misgivings about the way in which the EGS has positioned itself in the market and the tactics they have used. While they claim to be championing developers, to the benefit of consumers, their practice of aggressively pursuing exclusives is an unwelcome throwback in an industry that is moving away from this model. But I digress.
The tipping point came for me when I was attempting to customise the game controls. As many with larger hands might sympathise, I sometimes find the standard WASD control scheme too cramped, particularly for games that require great dexterity and reaction time. Effectively controlling the predator certainly ticks both of those boxes, so I resolved to rebind the controls. No problem… until I finished all the special key-binds and suddenly realised that basic movement controls weren’t listed. So you can rebind every control, except for the actually WASD keys themselves.
“I must be missing something”, I thought to myself, so I decided to look for some support. I go to the Epic Games library, but there isn’t anything beyond some basic game options. I go to the store page and there isn’t anything there either, not even a link to official forums. After a google search I finally come across the official Illfonic forums and discover other people having the same problem, with no fix at present. I recalled the key mapping options having been relocated in the first, pre-release patch notes, so I’m sure it’s just an error that someone overlooked during the mad rush to the release date.
As a long-time PC player I’m quite familiar and accepting of having to MacGuyver games into a playable state, so I head to the system folders to look for a config file that might allow me to change the binds manually. That’s when I stumble across a Steamworks folder, containing store-related files belonging to Valve Corporation. “You know what?”, I think to myself, “These kinds of issues are much easier to address through Steam…” I’m normally very good at tracking down the precise status of Epic exclusivity, and have held-off buying any other titles thus far (The Sinking City, Control, etc) because I was always able to establish that these were timed only. In this case I never found even a hint of a suggestion that the game would be on any storefronts other than EGS.
Now, I understand the factors motivating Illfonic and other developers in these situations, and don’t blame them at all for accepting such generous terms. They can mean the difference between studios riding out a less-than-stellar release or having to shut down. If this were a single-player game I’m not even sure I’d care this much, but with multiplayer-only titles the rapid flow of information between players and developer is the single most vital element in allowing the game to be efficiently refined during the critical post-launch window. When these kinds of things aren’t addressed quickly, the player base simply moves on to the next title and you have a dead game on your hands.
As it stands, the EGS just doesn’t have the necessary features to allow this game to flourish, now or in the long term (which will depend on simple ways of creating dedicated player groups etc). So, for now, I’m viewing it as a paid beta. When it comes to Steam, no doubt in a better state and more content, I’ll happily put down the same or greater money on it. Until then, I’ll be watching from the tree line…