Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem (PC) was a hit on Steam in early 2020. But how is the game doing now, which has received several updates by now? Is it worth playing Wolcen as a stopgap until Diablo 4 is released?
What is Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem? The action RPG places you in a dark fantasy world where magic is fundamentally forbidden. However, when your hero suddenly casts spells, he is cast out and hunted. You must find out what happened and uncover a dark threat.
You may develop your hero based on many skills and create your own build. In battles against armies of enemies, you will always find better loot. The adventure can be experienced either alone or with up to three friends.
What is the situation around Wolcen? The hack ‘n slash started on February 13, 2020, with really good player numbers on Steam. It peaked at 127,542 concurrent players (via Steamcharts). However, these numbers dropped significantly in March and now lie at only 1,470 concurrent players at peak.
The reason for the decline in player numbers was the initial state of the action RPG. Wolcen was plagued by bugs and performance suffered from severe lags. For this reason, the developers stated they would take almost a year to address the issues with patches before the first major content update was scheduled to be released.
However, the improvement of Wolcen progressed slowly. Although smaller patches that fixed bugs were regularly released, the situation improved only gradually. In December 2020, the major update “Chronicle 1: Bloodtrail” followed.
Wolcen is still not free from problems
What did the update bring? “Chronicle 1: Bloodtrail” introduced several innovations. These include:
- the game mode “Chronicles”, where you can experience seasons, events, and a new economy with a new character.
- Pets
- A new extensive quest
- New skills
- A rework of crafting
Most recently, on April 1, a new update titled “Bloodstorm” was released. This brought:
- 4 new game areas
- 13 variants of known locations
- New damage modifiers
- Bug fixes
- Balancing adjustments
- Improvements to pets
- Optimizations to the “Champion of Stormfall” endgame content
What do players currently think about Wolcen? Here we summarize some current voices from the community for you:
- Vladislaugh expresses disappointment (via Steam): “There is still hardly any content, but plenty of bugs.”
- Xytox is even quite angry (via Steam): “The multiplayer is still unplayable after more than a year!”
- tltson21 wishes for more (via Steam): “The online mode is unplayable with a ping of over 100ms. The endgame is almost non-existent. Essentially, you replay the campaign with fewer dialogues.”
- Billstaine explains (via Steam): “With all the negative reviews, I had to think for a month about whether I should get the game. But I don’t regret it. It’s one of the best action RPGs. Don’t listen to the negative people, try it yourself.”
- syph3r says (via Steam): “A lot of cool monster smashing, skills, and special abilities. It is possible to build some cool classes, and the endgame motivates for at least 40 hours.”
- Enigma_The_One writes (via Steam): “After a year, Wolcen can and should be looked at. Wherever those so-called “errors and bugs” of the previous writers are supposed to be is a mystery to me, but that’s fine. And whoever still has NOT understood why no old characters from the base game can be transferred to the new one should not write a review. This is NOT a negative point…”
Wolcen seems to be on a good path
Is it worth playing Wolcen as a stopgap until Diablo 4 is released? Wolcen is still struggling with problems. There are still bugs, balancing issues, and a lack of long-term engaging and new content. And yet, a slight trend is currently emerging that makes the hack ‘n slash seem a bit more positive again. The player numbers are slowly rising, and even the latest reviews are leaning in a favorable direction.
Wolcen is definitely not a bad action RPG. From my own experience, I can say that it is fun to battle through the hordes of monsters. The story is well staged, the boss fights have interesting mechanics, and the hunt for ever better loot is motivating. Furthermore, Wolcen looks really good:
- Those who can overlook bugs and want to bridge the time until Diablo 4 or Diablo 2 Resurrected find a good hack ‘n slash in Wolcen.
- The lags in multiplayer are still present, but in single-player mode, Wolcen can be played well. Therefore, it is advisable to wait for a sale.
If you want to check out other action RPGs, then read the MeinMMO list Games like Diablo – Who needs Diablo 4? Here are 11 current alternatives.
