It was a good attempt.

[Claytor Yurnero]

I'm definitely in the crowd that was hoping for another Void Bastards experience, but this tactics/fps step was an interesting idea.

Unfortunately with the active player count around 50 and a peak player count of nearly a TENTH of Void Bastard's, we can safely say this game has failed to make considerable money. (Unless it somehow sold a ♥♥♥♥ ton of copies on console)

I have no idea if this game was supposed to be a cash infusion to keep the developer's lights on, but I would bet good money that they are sitting deep in the red considering the marketing campaign.

You could argue the merits of Wild Bastards and it's unique spin on the genre, but it doesn't matter much if people aren't buying it.

Let us hope they recover and bring back the roguelike exploration gameplay that many people enjoyed.

[prime amoeba]

Indeed, looks like a seriously botched launch.

I was definitely in the main target audience, really enjoyed Void Bastards. Bought Wild Bastards despite the messed up regional pricing (WB cost whopping 4x the price of VB in my region!). Ultimately ended up refunding the game, which I rarely do.

Can't say that I was even in the crowd wanting a sequel to VB, it's just that WB didn't really live up to expectations of quality and craftmanship established by VB. Some examples:

- The overemphasis on narrative over gameplay which was delivered in rather heavy-handed fashion. In VB the narrative was more subtle, blending in the background and not feeling as intrusive, you didn't have to click through tons of dialogue all the time. At the same time the writing and humor in VB were overall much better than WB, which feels a tad too immature at times. Dividing the main campaign to two doesn't also really work, the procedural campaign feels too bare bones.

- WB gameplay overall lacks the depth and variety of VB. The planets feel too formulaic and play too similalry compared to the crazy variance of the spaceships in VB, the resource management is too simplified and there's too heavy emphasis on combat that's not too fun by itself. VB offered the player more choices and had enough complexity to be called a "strategy shooter", for WB that sounds like a stretch, the game feels like an arcade game.

- Overall the UX/UI is all over the place, too much waste of space, unnecessary clicking and wasting the player's time. This is quite strange, since VB had overly stylized UI (as a comic book) which still felt perfectly functional and never as intrusive as WB does.

Overall the game feels like it had a troubled development, maybe started as a more ambitious design that failed to actualize. Which is a bummer since there's lots to love in WB, the game oozes style and has lots of novelty. And overall Blue Manchu seem like devs that have their hearts in the right place and deserve to stay in business, so I also wish them all the best.

[verlorensquirrel]

I love Void Bastards, one of my all time favorite games, and although it took a little longer for Wild Bastards to click with me, I also enjoy it, immensely, even if there are some areas that I feel could be improved or expanded on. I can't speculate on how well the game is or isn't doing, or if it's not doing well all the reasons why, all I can say is that I like the game, and I feel like the fact that it does take some time to really get into it is probably the source of a number of the complaints in an age where people give something roughly 8 minutes before complaining. I also think that since so many of the complaints end up being about the combat, that's a key issue - one could (and should) argue that in Void Bastards, the combat wasn't the point, and in a lot of ways, it's not the point here, but that's a little more confusing because your goal in showdowns is to, in fact, kill everybody. So it IS the goal, but NOT the main point of the gameplay, which is more about strategy and decision making.

I do think that there are signs that there were more ambitious plans for the game (some of the buildings seem too specific to have just been a geometry asset to begin with) and I'd love if it got some kind of update like how Void Bastards got the Tydy stuff (only, ideally, better than that), but I honestly think that it's a unique enough game that there's some risk associated on whether or not people get into it or not, and that risk is always present when you try something new rather than more of the same. I would have loved a direct Void Bastards sequel in terms of gameplay and concept but I'm glad Wild Bastards exists, all the same.

And honestly, when it comes to sales, it could be any number of things holding a game back. I've seen absolute gems go completely ignored and I've seen lazy slop attain the all powerful "overwhelmingly positive" rating simply because the right streamer told his fans "you like this, now." So, who knows. I like it, I recommend it, but sometimes it just doesn't take off.

[prime amoeba]

Originally posted by verlorensquirrel:

I do think that there are signs that there were more ambitious plans for the game (some of the buildings seem too specific to have just been a geometry asset to begin with) ...

Yeah, I got the impression as if the various buildings had initially worked like the rooms in Void Bastards with their own specific systems that have planet-wide effects. Some of them recurring (like the saloons), some planet-specific (something seriously lacking in the final game). Instead of them being just simple roadblocks to murder through, the player also could just sneak in, explore, gather resources, activate strategic effects, sneak out, etc.

There are lots of other things like the ace system, with the core aces potentially working like the ingenious trait system from Void Bastards, instead of just gaining fixed 3 traits in linear fashion, you could also lose them, have negative ones etc. The charged ace feels like a tacked on afterthought, as do several of the boring +1 armor/damage/hp aces. Also why is there a character level? Just for scaling purposes?

There's definitely shedloads of potential in the game and I'm going to keep my eye on potential updates/overhauls. Purchase it later if/when they decide to introduce reasonable regional pricing, or grab it on discount.

[verlorensquirrel]

Originally posted by prime amoeba:

Originally posted by verlorensquirrel:

I do think that there are signs that there were more ambitious plans for the game (some of the buildings seem too specific to have just been a geometry asset to begin with) ...

Yeah, I got the impression as if the various buildings had initially worked like the rooms in Void Bastards with their own specific systems that have planet-wide effects. Some of them recurring (like the saloons), some planet-specific (something seriously lacking in the final game). Instead of them being just simple roadblocks to murder through, the player also could just sneak in, explore, gather resources, activate strategic effects, sneak out, etc.

The fact that Rages consistently appear in Saloons and Invulnerabilities consistently appear in Churches kind of looks to me that whatever plans they might have had were scrapped and they decided to just put something in so there would be a bare-bones reason to pay attention to some of the buildings. If that's the case then indeed it's disappointing because the specific rooms were one of the most enjoyable things about exploring in VB and I would have loved a version of it, here. I can understand that to some extent, making all the looting happen on the planet map helps make the map itself kind of its own other game, which helps at some depth but more exploration in the roadblocks would have still been appreciated, even if it was still paired down from the Void Bastard gameplay. Like would it have been so bad to even just throw the occasional Cramm pickup in there to find? I even thought up a mechanic where maybe the roadblocks still end when everybody's dead but the last enemy will always flee, and you can either gain an infamy bonus for taking him out, or do some last minute searching to before he does, and kind of make the player balance fighting and exploring at their discretion.

Again, I really love the game as it is, but I for sure see areas for improvement that could have made it even more compelling.

[Zankem]

Void Bastard was carried by the scavenging, survival, and interesting weapons with some lite sneaking mechanics. The gunplay for it was very mid, this game is only a bit better. Thinking that they could sell this at the same price, which was already ridiculous, is questionable. The maps are also way worse because they're just wide open nothing arenas. Most of its budget seems to have gone into getting VAs for the characters. It's just disappointing overall for me and not sure why I bought it when Void Bastard was just passably interesting and this cut out so much more.

[ChubbiChibbai]

I loved Void Bastards but was immediately put off this game the second i watched previews with the bland art direction / colour palate. I just really dislike the aesthetic for a western themed game.

Second - genre fatigue. Every man and their dog is launching a rogue-esque experience these days. My library is so full of them and often they are fun at first and then become shallow. It feels like the genre is overcooked now and unfortunately this game dove into the cash pile way too late for me to even be bothered taking a look despite loving the previous game.

Oh and the price. Ridiculous. Even the sale price seems too high given how little attention this game got. I remember being bored even watching preview playthroughs and it dropped off my radar. It only appeared in my steam feed again because of the sale - but only enough to make look at the game. Look at comments and see lists of suggestions and zero developer responses.

For less price there are games in the same genre wih far more engaged developers getting far more updates.

[prime amoeba]

The lack of developer engagement has been strange indeed from an indie studio. I wonder if it was because of the generally negative reaction to the demo here earlier this year. When Void Bastards was released, they were quite actively responding to feedback.

There's been mostly sporadic comments on Discord, with blunders like promising to comment/update on the lack of regional pricing then going silent about it.

Along with other weird and shifty takes like pulling out the demo during release, sub-par marketing and short-sighted pricing, I'm starting to think they just made a bad publisher deal and ran out of money.

[JupitelThunder]

I wonder if "consultants" had anything to do with the direction/poor delivery of this game. I'm beginning to think that these missteps made in triple A titles are going to bleed into smaller studios. The sad part is if they made VB2 with the same level of effort but kept what made the first game great, I'd have been willing to buy it even at its overpriced listing.

After digging a little deeper, Maximum Entertainment is also involved in how badly Hammerwatch 2 was received when Heroes of Hammerwatch (Crackshell self-published) had a similar audience that widely enjoyed the game and were dumbfounded when the studio took such a departure from it with the sequel. Either it's a complete coincidence that these 2 titles suffered such a similar fate or publishers like M.E with questionable management are an extension of the extortion ring adjacent to sweetbaby inc. The tinfoil tightens.

I'd urge people to take a look at Maximum Entertainments stock history and you might notice a pattern lol.

[GnomeSlayer]

Is this game done for?

[Shlone]

They could of at least made the gunplay better. Its as stiff as void basterds but lacking all the supporting features that made that game fun.

[Hand's Hermit Permit]

I just found it amazing they didn't make more Void Bastards like gameplay. There are plenty of games that do roguelike shooting stuff these days. None of them System Shock style like Void Bastards, so it was very unique.

They didn't even milk Void Bastards that much. Just 1 Tydy DLC. Shame.

[brain sells]

I for one appreciate the game and consider it as good if not better than VB. VB definitely has an interesting formula and the world-building is definitely better because it's cool exploring a ship. WB sort of scraps the world and goes all in, into the combat. And the combat in WB is much better than VB having a lot of different characters with unique weapons and stunts. VB's combat was limited to 2 guns and a lot of times you just brought the same two guns each ship.

I think I do miss exploring mysterious and dangerous ships, but I appreciate the combat of WB. I think they are both great games. I think the ship exploration of VB does eventually get old, whereas the combat in WB stays fresh a lot longer especially because the maps seem more diverse.