Something seems off with the new Western MMO Wild West Online, but investigations are still coming up empty.
Wild West Online is one of those cases where an attractive new MMO seems to appear out of nowhere and suddenly gains attention. But can a game that looks so AAA actually deliver AAA quality, or is it just a facade?
Is Wild West Online something worth investing money in?
Proximity to Red Dead Redemption 2 purposely sought and found
Wild West Online’s first appearance was particularly clever.
“Somebody” leaked a western screenshot in a GTA forum, labeled as a “leaked screenshot”. The press jumped on it and said, “These are the first images from Red Dead Redemption 2, the new hit from the creators of GTA – amazing.”
Then came the reveal: “No, that’s not Red Dead Redemption. That’s our new game Wild West Online.”
But something seems off with the game, although no one can quite say what exactly.
Content creators on YouTube and Redditors have been discussing this topic for some time, and it keeps resurfacing. The UK edition of Kotaku has attempted to get to the bottom of the issue in a lengthy article.
Doubts that Wild West Online can be as good as it looks
There are some warning signals:
- No one really knows in detail who is behind the project and who is working on it. Everything is vague. It is said that employees have years of experience in the genre. There are also some key players. But Kotaku’s investigations to bring more information to light have come up empty.
- Instead, more and more connections between the involved companies were found. The question arises, whether the team is even capable of managing such a massive MMO at this level.
- There are indications that the controversial Sergey Titov is behind the game or closely tied to it. Titov owns several companies that have released games that have a bad reputation among gamers – like “War Z.”
- Wild West Online tries to distance itself from Titov and his company Free Reign Games, while internet detectives do everything they can to link Titov and his company to the game.
Connections to controversial games like War Z or Shattered Skies
However, Wild West Online states: We are only using the engine developed by one of Titov’s companies. He himself has nothing to do with the project.
YouTubers and Redditors find parallels that indicate Titov is connected to Wild West Online. However, these parallels are not really conclusive. Here are a few examples:
- The PR firm that handles Wild West Online also did PR for Free Reign Entertainment.
- The URLs of Wild West Online and Shattered Skies (a game from Free Reign) are very similar.
On their own, these are all coincidences, but in accumulation and combined with the engine, they are enough to raise doubts.
Fog surrounds the game
Kotaku says: It’s not so much about whether Titov is involved, but rather that the web of companies is so opaque that the mere fog surrounding the project is reason enough for many players to doubt Wild West Online.
Parallels to Ashes of Creation and ARK Survival Evolved
This situation “A hopeful online game appears out of nowhere and there are doubts about whether it is all legitimate” has occurred several times in recent years.
- The most popular example is ARK: Survival Evolved. The lead designer had to remain anonymous for a long time, because he was still contractually bound to a competitor. Only years later, after an expensive settlement, could the lead developer reveal that he was the genius behind the dinosaur hit. Until then, hardly anyone could explain how such a game could come “out of nowhere”.
- Also, Ashes of Creation, another “game out of nowhere” is struggling with accusations.Here, attempts were made to link the CEO to his past at a “multi-level marketing” company and a referral system. Even with Ashes of Creation, there are great doubts about whether the MMO can achieve the ambitious goals it has set for itself.
Read more about Wild West Online and its grand ambitions here:
New MMORPG Wild West Online: Competition for Red Dead Redemption
