After its official unveiling during the Game Awards, ATLAS - from the makers of ARK: Survival Evolved - is available in Steam Early Access although that’s debatable since the game isn’t currently playable for most. Continuing a series of consistent disappointments, beginning with multiple micro delays and poor communication from developer Grapeshot Games, Atlas has had little more than server issues and poor performance since going live for the public over the weekend.
Influencers and streamers got special access and treatment to the ambitious pirate-themed MMO, allowed to play the game to showcase gameplay on a working server and given early access, before paying customers were allowed in. This fueled the controversy surrounding launch issues, the general quality of game, and how what was teased in the extended Atlas gameplay trailer doesn’t seem to reflect the reality of gameplay.
For those interested in Atlas, it’s best to wait because the game isn’t nearly ready for sale (even if it’s labelled “early access”). After two days of attempts, we got into a PvP server once and was spawned into the middle of the ocean with many other players aimlessly killing each other or avoiding sea creatures with no land mass in sight, outside of the pile of dead floating (and hovering above the water) bodies.
Atlas Launch is a Total Disaster
Given the bold claims that an Atlas server can support up to 40,000 players and the hype surrounding this launch - especially on Twitch - server problems were to be expected and hence, the delays. That’s why we can’t figure out why Atlas was sold first before stress-testing the servers in a beta. Now we have countless thousands of players who paid for something leading into the holidays they didn’t get (yet) and many (at least, according to the official Atlas Discord) demanding refunds. That is, if they can get them. Steam’s refund policy dictates that if a game is played for less than two hours, player can request a refund. However, despite not playing, it’s counting many hours of playtime for some players.
The developers have also turned a vocal portion of the community against them, and not just memes and the Discord hate, but mass dislikes on the Atlas gameplay trailer, and as of the time of this writing, nearly 8000 reviews on Steam averaging a “mostly negative” score. Atlas community manager Jatheish Karunakaran posted an official statement just before launch, acknowledging the communication issues and timeline complexities, and took a moment to promise something great (and to explain how the gameplay trailer looked so good):
This problematic weekend is just the beginning for Atlas and in the long-run, once it’s up and running, it’ll have its audience. And over the weekend, communication on updates and such has been spot on in the Discord news channels. The results however, not too great. The hype (it’s been dominating on Twitch over the weekend) will die down since it’s very not fun to watch streamers play so far (unless you’re into endless sailing and punching trees or launching 35 arrows into a wolf to see numbers pop up). First impressions are just that and a substantial amount of players will inevitably drop off quickly due to Atlas’ botched launch and once they see how comparable it is to ARK: Survival Evolved - some even claiming this to be a big mod of that game, especially after discovering ARK menus hidden in the main menu of Atlas…
“The excitement you’re feeling about the project is not misguided. ATLAS has the potential to be the GOAT. I believe in this team, and I believe in this project. Perhaps I’m a little bias as I work on the title, but as an avid MMO and Survival player, this Massively Multiplayer Online Survival Sandbox game is going to blow out of the water. It is launching into Steam Early Access, so there is still so much we have planned and want to do – and it’s going to be great. Not to be cheesy, but you won’t have to wait much longer for an endless adventure of piracy ;).
I’m not exaggerating, this isn’t coming from a marketing mouth, the game is incredible, and all of the hype is justified– everything you have seen in the trailer and promotional media is real… it was just recorded with UI turned off lol…”
Needless to say, Sea of Thieves doesn’t need to worry just yet.
We’ll try to play again sometime soon.
