[quote][b]Warning: Dead PVP Game[/b]
This game has no meaningful single player content, and no playable PvP servers. There is no functioning PvP population, it's a dead game, and cannot be played as intended.[/quote]
Orbos was yet another "me too" PvP arena shooter dumped on Steam with the ambition of "going viral" and then getting monetised somehow... but of course it failed for a lot of reasons, and not just the very limited scope of the game with few maps, only 2 gameplay modes, and not much else to offer.
adding content to a game.
The game was abandoned roughly immediately after launch and hasn't been updated in 6 years and 8 months. It blew past the developers commitment to complete the game without any notification or admission of failure from the developer. The game will never be completed.
The developers made the fatal, lazy mistake of believing that PvP, other players, would be an acceptable substitute for doing the difficult job of adding single player level design, storytelling, NPCs and other rich aspects of designed game content to the game. As a result of this choice by the developers, the game has little to no actual interactive game content. It's a little considered fact that the vast majority of PvP only, multiplayer only games [b]fail[/b]. Developers must learn that other players are not an acceptable substitute for doing the job of game developers and building a game filled with content. PvP only games must have a [b]huge[/b] player base for them to "go viral" and succeed. But with no single player experience to add lasting value to a game, the developers instead chose to bet against all odds that their game would "go viral" without any actual reason for players to want to play the game. Predictably, they lost this bet.
Compounding this problem, the developers made the terrible mistake of launching a multiplayer only game in Early Access. This is almost certain to kill the game. Most gamers will evaluate a game only once. If they do so when the game is incomplete, they will check it out, then abandon it (just like the developers did). When (IF) the game eventually does get around to release, there will be no players, because the developers burned the first impressions through their faulty Early Access experience. Players who saw the game and didn't like it because it was incomplete [i]do not come back[/i]. Multiplayer games must have a large population if they are to go "viral" and succeed, especially without single player content to fall back on. Releasing a multiplayer only game into early access kills the game population, and thus the game, before the game even launches.
Unethically, the developers have left this on the Steam store in a dead, abandoned and unplayable state (because there's no players and no meaningful single player content). It's the responsibility of the developer to maintain their product, ensure it runs on all modern PCs, or if they determine there's defects and the game doesn't work, or the population dies, they should remove it from sale instead of misleadingly trying to scam gamers into buying knowingly dead/unplayable products.
This is harmful to Steam and to gamers, not just because it's a direct and intentional attempt to scam people, but because it takes a share of the marketing space and visibility away from other games. It's polluting Steam and making it harder for gamers to find genuine games and for genuine indie developers who put months or years into making proper games find an audience.
You're forced to sign a highly questionable yet legally unenforceable End User License Agreement... for such a relatively low effort, low quality game this comes across more as a delusion of grandeur than anything else. This agreement includes questionable requirements that may attempt to revoke consumer law protections that gamers expect to have, which is also highly problematic. Developers must learn they are here to serve gamers, not control them. I had my cat walk over the keyboard while the EULA was displaying, which fixed that problem for me.
So, should you download this game? Is this one of the best of the 110,000+ products on Steam?
Of course not, it's dead. But what we see time and time again is that developers will never learn that PvP is not content. From thousands of these amateur flops like Orbos, to catastrophic train wrecks like Sony's ill fated Concord, PvP exclusive games are far more likely to fail than succeed... and when developers never learn and keep shoving PvP and "live service" at gamers instead of creating content, it makes gaming worse for everyone.
