At the end of his comment, Prayr also claims that some features that worked in testing were deliberately withheld to be sold as new innovations after release. However, whether this is actually the case or whether they were revised due to problems is speculative.
New updates and plenty of communication
How did the developers respond? On May 6, the developers provided a response to player criticism. They published a roadmap to address the main issues.
Additionally, they commented on some negative reviews on Steam and showed self-criticism on the platform.
What has happened since the release? Within the first 3 days, small updates were released that included:
- a group function via the Steam interface
- adjustments to the UI
- a reduction in required account XP
- new tutorial quests.
Another update on May 14 included technical optimizations and minor adjustments to mobs and the crafting system.
On May 28, the big “Play with Friends” update was released, which not only included a proper friends feature but also allowed “base building” starting at level 2 instead of level 5. Additionally, players can now teleport back to the main hub with a new item every 40 minutes.
What’s next? On June 5, the developers announced Twitch Drops for Population Zero. This has already attracted many viewers to the MMORPG The Elder Scrolls Online on the streaming platform.
A Trello board has also been created to present the future content of the survival MMO. The developers are planning in the short term:
- custom key mappings
- adjustments to running
- fewer restrictions when building
and in the long term:
- private servers
- new biomes
- the promised factions
- a new type of account progression
- leaderboards
The first impression weighs heavily
Does Population Zero have a future? The low player numbers and the fact that the survival MMO received only 45% positive reviews on Steam create a negative image of the game.
However, the developers have shown self-criticism and have consistently released a larger update for Population Zero with meaningful expansions every week.
Unfortunately, the first impression at the start of Early Access counts a lot. With the current player numbers, it is also difficult to develop enjoyment in the game, as you rarely encounter teammates or opponents.
A second chance may come at the final release of the game, which is planned for 2021.
The monotonous quests and grind for account levels have also been criticized by some other Steam users, as well as the differences between the version on Steam and the tested versions.
At the end of his comment, Prayr also claims that some features that worked in testing were deliberately withheld to be sold as new innovations after release. However, whether this is actually the case or whether they were revised due to problems is speculative.
New updates and plenty of communication
How did the developers respond? On May 6, the developers provided a response to player criticism. They published a roadmap to address the main issues.
Additionally, they commented on some negative reviews on Steam and showed self-criticism on the platform.
What has happened since the release? Within the first 3 days, small updates were released that included:
- a group function via the Steam interface
- adjustments to the UI
- a reduction in required account XP
- new tutorial quests.
Another update on May 14 included technical optimizations and minor adjustments to mobs and the crafting system.
On May 28, the big “Play with Friends” update was released, which not only included a proper friends feature but also allowed “base building” starting at level 2 instead of level 5. Additionally, players can now teleport back to the main hub with a new item every 40 minutes.
What’s next? On June 5, the developers announced Twitch Drops for Population Zero. This has already attracted many viewers to the MMORPG The Elder Scrolls Online on the streaming platform.
A Trello board has also been created to present the future content of the survival MMO. The developers are planning in the short term:
- custom key mappings
- adjustments to running
- fewer restrictions when building
and in the long term:
- private servers
- new biomes
- the promised factions
- a new type of account progression
- leaderboards
The first impression weighs heavily
Does Population Zero have a future? The low player numbers and the fact that the survival MMO received only 45% positive reviews on Steam create a negative image of the game.
However, the developers have shown self-criticism and have consistently released a larger update for Population Zero with meaningful expansions every week.
Unfortunately, the first impression at the start of Early Access counts a lot. With the current player numbers, it is also difficult to develop enjoyment in the game, as you rarely encounter teammates or opponents.
A second chance may come at the final release of the game, which is planned for 2021.
The monotonous quests and grind for account levels have also been criticized by some other Steam users, as well as the differences between the version on Steam and the tested versions.
At the end of his comment, Prayr also claims that some features that worked in testing were deliberately withheld to be sold as new innovations after release. However, whether this is actually the case or whether they were revised due to problems is speculative.
New updates and plenty of communication
How did the developers respond? On May 6, the developers provided a response to player criticism. They published a roadmap to address the main issues.
Additionally, they commented on some negative reviews on Steam and showed self-criticism on the platform.
What has happened since the release? Within the first 3 days, small updates were released that included:
- a group function via the Steam interface
- adjustments to the UI
- a reduction in required account XP
- new tutorial quests.
Another update on May 14 included technical optimizations and minor adjustments to mobs and the crafting system.
On May 28, the big “Play with Friends” update was released, which not only included a proper friends feature but also allowed “base building” starting at level 2 instead of level 5. Additionally, players can now teleport back to the main hub with a new item every 40 minutes.
What’s next? On June 5, the developers announced Twitch Drops for Population Zero. This has already attracted many viewers to the MMORPG The Elder Scrolls Online on the streaming platform.
A Trello board has also been created to present the future content of the survival MMO. The developers are planning in the short term:
- custom key mappings
- adjustments to running
- fewer restrictions when building
and in the long term:
- private servers
- new biomes
- the promised factions
- a new type of account progression
- leaderboards
The first impression weighs heavily
Does Population Zero have a future? The low player numbers and the fact that the survival MMO received only 45% positive reviews on Steam create a negative image of the game.
However, the developers have shown self-criticism and have consistently released a larger update for Population Zero with meaningful expansions every week.
Unfortunately, the first impression at the start of Early Access counts a lot. With the current player numbers, it is also difficult to develop enjoyment in the game, as you rarely encounter teammates or opponents.
A second chance may come at the final release of the game, which is planned for 2021.
On May 5, the MMO Population Zero was released in Early Access on Steam. At launch, there were some technical, as well as content issues. Now, about a month later, we take a closer look at the game.
What is Population Zero, anyway? The survival MMO is the first game from the Russian developer Enplex Games and has some cool approaches that set it apart from other titles in the genre:
- You are stranded on the planet Keppler-438b, fighting for your survival.
- You use “medieval” weapons instead of modern or futuristic ones.
- There are various game modes, including pure PvE.
- Each mode runs for a specific cycle (usually 7 days). After that, it resets.
- Within a cycle, you must complete various tasks to unlock permanent rewards and new modes.
- If you die too often, you become the over-alien and get one last chance to complete your tasks.
Additionally, Population Zero heavily emphasizes the story aspect. Over the course of a session, NPCs and quests are supposed to reveal more about the planet. There is a main quest that you can follow, but you don’t have to.
Can the game convince? At the presentation of Population Zero, the ideas and concepts for the game sounded interesting. However, about a month after its release on Steam, the outlook for the new MMO isn’t good.
Although it launched on Steam with around 554 concurrent players at peak, on June 8, only a maximum of 21 players were playing Population Zero at the same time (via Steamcharts).
But what exactly caused the game to fail, and is a turnaround possible?
Technical issues, missing features, and the cycles
What are players criticizing? At the release of Population Zero, there was a long list of player complaints:
- A promised feature for factions was missing.
- There were no social features like groups or guilds. At launch, it wasn’t even guaranteed that you would end up on the same server as friends.
- There were technical issues that prevented some from playing at all.
- There were inadequate settings options. For instance, at the beginning, players couldn’t customize key bindings.
- The tutorial wasn’t thorough enough for many, and explanations for the different modes were lacking.
However, there was also criticism of the general gameplay on Steam. For example, the user Prayr stated after about 50 hours of gameplay on May 19:
[…] The game is no longer what it was during testing. Many of the gameplay mechanics are now different and no one can explain why.
Building and crafting in your own base was something you could do on day one of testing. Now you have to increase your account level to unlock things like PvP, respawn points, and T1 buildings.
To gain account experience, you have to repeat the same 10 quests over and over again to reach the next level. And the amount of experience required keeps increasing, so you could end up doing the same quests for 3 rounds or repeat one 50 times or so.
There is no team or group play, contrary to what was promised! The servers only hold 200 players, but as you can see, there are barely more than 50 players, so you are mostly alone. […].
The monotonous quests and grind for account levels have also been criticized by some other Steam users, as well as the differences between the version on Steam and the tested versions.
At the end of his comment, Prayr also claims that some features that worked in testing were deliberately withheld to be sold as new innovations after release. However, whether this is actually the case or whether they were revised due to problems is speculative.
New updates and plenty of communication
How did the developers respond? On May 6, the developers provided a response to player criticism. They published a roadmap to address the main issues.
Additionally, they commented on some negative reviews on Steam and showed self-criticism on the platform.
What has happened since the release? Within the first 3 days, small updates were released that included:
- a group function via the Steam interface
- adjustments to the UI
- a reduction in required account XP
- new tutorial quests.
Another update on May 14 included technical optimizations and minor adjustments to mobs and the crafting system.
On May 28, the big “Play with Friends” update was released, which not only included a proper friends feature but also allowed “base building” starting at level 2 instead of level 5. Additionally, players can now teleport back to the main hub with a new item every 40 minutes.
What’s next? On June 5, the developers announced Twitch Drops for Population Zero. This has already attracted many viewers to the MMORPG The Elder Scrolls Online on the streaming platform.
A Trello board has also been created to present the future content of the survival MMO. The developers are planning in the short term:
- custom key mappings
- adjustments to running
- fewer restrictions when building
and in the long term:
- private servers
- new biomes
- the promised factions
- a new type of account progression
- leaderboards
The first impression weighs heavily
Does Population Zero have a future? The low player numbers and the fact that the survival MMO received only 45% positive reviews on Steam create a negative image of the game.
However, the developers have shown self-criticism and have consistently released a larger update for Population Zero with meaningful expansions every week.
Unfortunately, the first impression at the start of Early Access counts a lot. With the current player numbers, it is also difficult to develop enjoyment in the game, as you rarely encounter teammates or opponents.
A second chance may come at the final release of the game, which is planned for 2021.
