What is the Pirate MMO Atlas? For some time now, both reviews and player numbers have been increasing. Is it worth checking out the game again?
What is Atlas? It is a survival MMO that resembles ARK: Survival Evolved. In an island world, you sail with your ship, fight monsters, gather resources, and try to survive. You build a base with friends and must defend it in PvP battles against other players.
Ship battles also play an important role. It is necessary to upgrade and expand your ship to have a chance against other players.
Atlas is experiencing a resurgence
What is the current status of the game? Atlas launched very strongly in December 2018. However, afterwards, there was a steady decline in player numbers, and the reviews did not fare well either. Especially the performance and bugs were criticized along with some gameplay elements. Among other things, it was noted that players’ bases could be attacked while they were offline.
However, since October, the game has been experiencing a resurgence. Player numbers are increasing significantly and steadily. This can be seen well on Steamcharts. Currently, the average number of players over the past 30 days is 4,556 players. The peak was 9,069 players. In September, the number was only 1,446 concurrent players on average, with a peak of 2,942.
The reviews on Steam are also rising significantly again, currently at 78 percent mostly positive over the past 30 days. In August, this rating was only 51 percent.
What caused this resurgence? Atlas has had a new lead designer, Erik Waananen, since this summer, who announced plans to address issues that players have been complaining about for some time. The team previously placed too much emphasis on constantly bringing new content, but very little was done about the actual problems.
And Erik Waananen seems to have tightened things up in exactly the right places. Atlas receives updates that do not introduce as much new content as before but instead focus more on bugs and performance issues (even though there is still much to be done regarding performance). In addition, more emphasis is placed on PvP than on PvE.
Especially in terms of balancing and quality of life features, a lot has changed:
- The intelligence stat is no longer decisive in the endgame, which was previously a problem.
- Strong ships can no longer be upgraded through so many points in damage and defense to become nearly unbeatable.
- Harpoons have been nerfed as they were too powerful in PvP.
- Many adjustments have been made to boss fights, making them fairer.
- The controls have been adjusted.
- There are many bug fixes.
The crossplay feature between the PC and Xbox One version has also contributed to more players checking out Atlas.
Is it worth playing?
What do players currently think of Atlas? As already mentioned, the opinion of the game has improved significantly.
- nikkyboy writes on Steam: “I waited to play because I wanted it to be good. Now I’m glad I waited. It’s still not perfect but at least not bad. It has its quirks but is fun.”
- SparkiTV_Twitch says: “Yes, Atlas is based on Ark and that’s a good thing! Why do I recommend it? Clearly because it’s an interesting adventure. Of course, it’s Early Access and there is still much to do! It was no different with Ark…”
- JaMBaM8 believes: “It’s fun and has improved a lot since release.”
Is it worth playing Atlas again? The Atlas of today is a significantly better game than it was six months ago. Of course, it is still an Early Access version and there are still issues here and there – especially regarding performance.
Nevertheless, it is definitely worth taking another look and giving Atlas a second chance with all the changes it has undergone.
