Emergency Disappointed Fans of Iconic Strategy Game
The release of the new Emergency cannot be counted as a success. The game is receiving dismal reviews on Steam, mainly due to the use of the free-to-play model.
Yesterday marked the Steam release of Emergency, the next installment in the popular strategy game series by Sixteen Tons Entertainment, in which we command the emergency services. Unfortunately, the launch turned out to be a disaster.
- On Steam, the game has only 35% positive reviews, which is categorized as a "mostly negative" reception.
- The reason for such a bad reception of Emergency is mainly due to the use of a free-to-play model with an aggressive monetization system and many solutions typical of mobile games.
- Earlier installments were traditional paid games without microtransactions. This approach appealed to the players - a good example is Emergency 20, released a few years ago, which has 84% positive reviews on Steam.
"A waste of time".
Below are some player reviews that illustrate their problems with the latest incarnation of the brand.
"A waste of time. If you have nostalgic memories of Emergency 2 and are hoping for something like it, but in a modern graphic setting, you will be disappointed.
You can only place units in designated areas. There is a lack of freedom of action, sa loot boxes, daily logging, etc. In other words, something a la mobile game, only that it was released on PC. It's better to install the older parts of the series."
"A while ago I launched, went through the first missions, and I can see that it is not a continuation of the iconic Emergency, but a money grab. Skins, crates, packages, some diamonds. Everything for money. I see no future for this project developed in this direction.
Previous Emergency is more than 20 GB on the disk, the latest - less than 8 GB.
I don't recommend it."
"I grew up with the Emergency series and played most of its installments that I managed to get my hands on. It seemed to me that the series died with the last game. I feel as if someone dug a beloved childhood family pet out of the grave only to desecrate its corpse before my eyes."
The argument for introducing free-to-play solutions is often the desire to increase the number of players. In this regard, the game is doing better than the previous installment of the series, but it's hard to talk this a success. The activity record from the day of release was 2449 people playing simultaneously. This is a poor result for a F2P game. It bodes poorly for the new Emergency for the future.
