Dev Statement: 13 Nov Official Statement by Microids & Playmagic regarding XIII

[MissYoda]

Saves clicking the link:

Greetings,

The highly anticipated remake of XIII, awaited by many fans, came out earlier this week. Unfortunately, players expectations have not been met by the launch version and we hear loud and clear the legitimate criticism and disappointment.

First and foremost, we would like to offer our most sincere apologies for the game’s technical issues. In its present state, XIII does not meet our quality standards and we fully understand players’ frustrations. The pandemic has impacted the game’s production on many levels. Pivoting to home working for the teams has added unexpected delays in the development schedule and the QA process. We hoped we would be able to provide a Day One patch fixing all the issues but the development of this update is taking more time than expected.

We want to assure you that PlayMagic is working hard to solve all the game’s issues. With live monitoring and multiple patches in the upcoming days and weeks, we hope to reach the quality level we all expect for the optimum gaming experience. The first update will be pushed shortly to fix the most urgent issues regarding the controls, frame rate, collisions, rendering and sound. For information about the upcoming patches, please follow this link: https://www.microids.com/xiii-patch-notes/

In addition, we wanted to thank the community for all the feedback. We are reviewing every single comment carefully, passing along the bugs and issues to the development team. Feel free to send us your feedback and questions to: [e-mail]

Finally, know that we are working on a detailed road map highlighting the upcoming free additions to the game content like new levels, weapons, skins and modes for the local multiplayer.

We are aiming to please all the XIII fans and we’ll work relentlessly to achieve our goal.

The teams at Microids and PlayMagic

[Ossie]

been waiting for this game for SO LONG, and its truly so sad to see the current state of the game.

[MissYoda]

Originally posted by Ossie:

been waiting for this game for SO LONG, and its truly so sad to see the current state of the game.

Agreed, i won't be surprised if the game was pulled from the store.

[B166ER]

Originally posted by Kofu:

Originally posted by Ossie:

been waiting for this game for SO LONG, and its truly so sad to see the current state of the game.

Agreed, i won't be surprised if the game was pulled from the store.

I'd be surprised if they do, because as it stands they:
1. Deliberately released an untested alpha version
2. Deliberately lied about that in their response

which means if they pull the game from the store they have nothing to show for all their time invested and thus nothing to sell, and that time + their "effort" was only just enough for a broken alpha game.

[a7]

There are more bugs than are mentioned on the patch notes list and should be reported. But if at least all the known issues are fixed in the next update, I will consider the game to be pretty good.

[B166ER]

Originally posted by a7:

There are more bugs than are mentioned on the patch notes list and should be reported. But if at least all the known issues are fixed in the next update, I will consider the game to be pretty good.

>...I will consider the game to be pretty good.

Wow, your expectations have to be just above "The game can be started" if you consider this mess of an alpha game to be good with a few bugfixes.

[a7]

Originally posted by B166ER:

Wow, your expectations have to be just above "The game can be started" if you consider this mess of an alpha game good with a few bugfixes.

Nope, I have actually unlike many critics played the whole game and the most blatant problems I encountered (laggy performance at some places, audio glitches, bad enemy AI etc) are already on the list. This remake will probably never satisfy those who expect having the same game as the original, but they can just play it instead.

[Mrgrimm150]

Originally posted by a7:

Originally posted by B166ER:

Wow, your expectations have to be just above "The game can be started" if you consider this mess of an alpha game good with a few bugfixes.

Nope, I have actually unlike many critics played the whole game and the most blatant problems I encountered (laggy performance at some places, audio glitches, bad enemy AI etc) are already on the list. This remake will probably never satisfy those who expect having the same game as the original, but they can just play it instead.

So who's the game for then?

It lacks the distinctive visual style of the original.

Is riddled with bugs unlike the original.

Has terrible AI unlike the original.

Is missing features like bots unlike the original

and costs substantially more.

What reason would anyone have to buy this remake over the original XIII even if they weren't a diehard fan of it and just wanted to see what the game was about?

[a7]

Originally posted by Mrgrimm150:

So who's the game for then?

I played the original several times and although I liked it, I see its limits. No, it is not the perfect game as some claim and has flaws. Also there are technical problems - the game is old and these problems will just add up with time.
Yes, there is fan made patch, but it cannot solve all issues. If bugs in the remake are fixed, it will be much better experience technically-wise for most players on modern hardware.
The rest is just matter of personal preferences. For example I'll have no problem with graphics in the remake if it is tweaked a bit to more comic-like style. There is currently mass hysteria around this game (but pragmatic criticism is of course deserved) but it will surely fade in time with updates.

[DetCord12B]

"In its present state, XIII does not meet our quality standards."

And yet they released it. Therefore they ARE their quality standards.

[Archetype Hisui]

The game's steam score is Overwhelmingly Negative. It's over.

[a7]

Rather unfinished than over for me.

[B166ER]

Originally posted by a7:

Rather unfinished than over.

Do you honestly believe they can recover from "This game doesn't meet our quality standards, and yet we released it anyway" after 3 days of silence with the rightful scorn of scammed customers and the overwhelmingly negative reviews?

[a7]

What do you mean by "recover"? The game sales? I do not care, it is the publisher problem. A majority opinion? I care even less about it. If the developers fix the bugs according to the patch-notes, I will be satisfied.

[Metalraiser]

Uhm has there been any patch yet?

[Buntkreuz]

"XIII does not meet our quality standards"
Well, it obviously was. Otherwise it wouldnt have been released.
A release means that the work is done and it can be published to the public the way it is.
You set your standard with what you release as ready.