Super Squad was an attempt at making a PvP only 3D rendered top down twin stick PvP only arena shooter. The game featured cartoony/low poly/mobile app tier "art" instead of contemporary state of the art PC graphics, whether this was due to lack of talent or budget is unclear, but the resultant low quality visuals is surely a factor in the impending demise of this game. Gameplay was intended to be large scale PvP team based top down shooting.
My current projections shows the game will be completely dead in 6 months. SteamDB shows the game peaked with 36 players, which is a pitiful number, and now the game has practically no players, with numbers typically fewer than 5 at any given time, not enough to create a team match. The game is in development hell, and shows no sign of completion, and has swept past the developers commitment to leave Early Access late last year. There's no apparent path or plan from the developers for this game to be completed, and given the dead player base, no incentive to do so either. Why did it fail? It's video game autopsy time!
The developers first instinct and actions were to put gamers last, with some downright toxic moves. There's an insane, insulting and completely unacceptable day 1 DLC of a whopping AAA $30 USD for an unfinished game with crappy mobile app tier low poly "art". That's either mentally unhinged levels of optimisism, or unforseen levels of blind greed from the developers there. Talking about blind greed, we can only assume Tencent money changed hands here, because you MUST create an account on the consumer hostile, industry hostile Epic Games Store. Not only that, but they also demand that you permit Tencent/Epic Games full access to your Steam profile and personal data. That's right, these guys are acting as a conduit to try force people to use spyware. That cancer can f&2k right off and never come back. Developers must be aware that when they behave unethically and support unethical and harmful businesses, there will be wholly deserved consumer backlash from their percieved antagonism towards gamers and the industry.
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.
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 subsititue 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.
Given the EGS exclusivity and anti-gamer and industry hostile stance from the developer here, it's a rare case that I'm genuinely happy this game has failed, as such a spectacular failure can only serve to educate developers on more things they must never do.
However, at the end of the day, reviews must be about the games, and not the developers, no matter how toxic and harmful their behaviour is. Taking Super Squad as a game in it's own right, it's terrible, with one foot in the grave, with low quality graphics, console centric gameplay that simply doesn't belong on PC, and it has no content to speak of, so there's no way this could be recommended to gamers. PC gamers deserve better.
