Sony’s newest first-party title Harmony is going through a really tough begin, not less than on PC, failing to attract in even a thousand concurrent gamers on launch day.
Normally the day of launch for a recreation is often it’s greatest day by way of gamers, so for developer Firewalk and writer Sony it have to be not less than a tad regarding that Harmony is posting very low numbers. In response to SteamDB, Harmony managed to hit a peak concurrent participant rely of simply 697 gamers.
That’s significantly decrease than the recreation’s personal betas managed simply weeks in the past. In truth, to offer some perspective, even Redfall, which was thought-about an enormous flop, drew in over 6,000 gamers on its launch final yr. And that’s whereas it was obtainable on Sport Cross, giving folks even much less cause to pay full value on Steam. Redfall was additionally less expensive than Harmony which is promoting for £34.99.
It’s additionally a far cry from the massive success that Sony’s different live-service recreation from earlier this yr managed. Helldivers 2 turned an enormous success for the corporate, and remains to be drawing in 20-30k concurrent gamers daily.
In fact, these numbers don’t have in mind how many individuals are taking part in on PS5. There could possibly be many 1000’s having fun with it on Sony’s machine, however usually talking I feel the Steam numbers are an honest indicator that Harmony isn’t doing properly.
That’s a significant downside as a result of it looks as if Harmony has been in growth for a really very long time. A number of days in the past lead character designer Jon Weisnewski revealed that Harmony has truly been in growth for a whopping 8 years. Of these 8 yr, Weisnewski has been engaged on the sport for five.
Now, to be honest, that might imply just a few issues. The sport might have been within the conceptual stage for fairly just a few years earlier than it ever entered full-blown growth. Or his assertion could be taken at face-value and Harmony actually has been labored on for 8 years.
It is smart when you concentrate on it. The sport has drawn comparisons to the likes of Overwatch and Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, each of which have been very profitable on the time of Harmony’s inception.
Critically, although, it’s performing okay. Preserving in thoughts just a few opinions have filtered out, principally as a consequence of code going out late and shops wanting to check real-world efficiency, the Metacritic rating is sitting at 68.
The sport’s Steam opinions are additionally at present “Largely constructive” primarily based on just a few hundred folks ranking it.
Criticism brings us to @anim_xander, a former animator at Firewalk who dealt with first-person animation for a number of of the sport’s Freegunners, particularly Daw, Duchess and Kyps. Speaking to a different person on X who said that they have been sorry Harmony was @anim_xander’s first recreation as a result of low participant rely, @anim_zander replied, “eh, i don’t actually care. it was an enormous labour from plenty of insanely proficient folks making an superior recreation. why would i care a couple of bunch of talentless freaks hating on it?”
Evidently, the reply, which has now been deleted, didn’t go down very properly, as folks rightfully identified that referring to folks disliking the sport as “talentless freaks” was an immature method to deal with criticism.
It’s unclear as to precisely who the previous developer is aiming the feedback at. I’m assuming it was meant in opposition to criticism that Discord was closely influenced by DEI beliefs. Nevertheless, it may be levelled on the different main criticism I’ve seen on-line which is that the character designs are ugly. Even lots of the constructive Steam opinions point out this.
No matter group the previous dev was concentrating on, the end result is similar: it’s not an excellent search for a recreation that wants all the great publicity it may well get proper now. Harmony might snatch a win from the jaws of defeat right here, as different video games have managed to do with constructive phrase of mouth and a gradual constructing of belief. Sony and Firewalk have already dedicated to not less than just a few seasons of content material, in spite of everything.
Proper now although, the truth is Harmony is an enormous flop, particularly for Sony who acquired Firewalk Studios in 2023, presumably as a result of they thought Harmony was going to be successful and an ideal subsequent step into the live-service market. Will these low participant numbers trigger the sport to go free-to-play or maybe even be supplied to PS Plus Further members? Or will Sony attempt to experience it out?
