Sony’s newest first-party title Harmony is dealing with a really tough begin, at the least on PC, failing to attract in even a thousand concurrent gamers on launch day.
Normally the day of launch for a sport is usually it’s largest day by way of gamers, so for developer Firewalk and writer Sony it have to be at the least 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 sport’s personal betas managed simply weeks in the past. The truth is, to supply some perspective, even Redfall, which was thought-about an enormous flop, drew in over 6,000 gamers on its launch final 12 months. And that’s whereas it was accessible on Recreation Move, giving individuals 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 large success that Sony’s different live-service sport from earlier this 12 months managed. Helldivers 2 turned an enormous success for the corporate, and continues to be drawing in 20-30k concurrent gamers every single day.
In fact, these numbers don’t bear in mind how many individuals are enjoying on PS5. There could possibly be many hundreds having fun with it on Sony’s machine, however typically talking I feel the Steam numbers are an honest indicator that Harmony isn’t doing nicely.
That’s a serious drawback as a result of it looks like Harmony has been in improvement for a really very long time. Just a few days in the past lead character designer Jon Weisnewski revealed that Harmony has truly been in improvement for a whopping 8 years. Of these 8 12 months, Weisnewski has been engaged on the sport for five.
Now, to be honest, that would imply a number of issues. The sport may have been within the conceptual stage for fairly a number of years earlier than it ever entered full-blown improvement. Or his assertion could be taken at face-value and Harmony actually has been labored on for 8 years.
It is smart when you consider it. The sport has drawn comparisons to the likes of Overwatch and Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, each of which had been very profitable on the time of Harmony’s inception.
Critically, although, it’s performing okay. Conserving in thoughts just a few opinions have filtered out, largely attributable to code going out late and retailers wanting to check real-world efficiency, the Metacritic rating is sitting at 68.
The sport’s Steam opinions are additionally presently “Largely constructive” based mostly on a number of hundred individuals score 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 had been sorry Harmony was @anim_xander’s first sport as a result of low participant rely, @anim_zander replied, “eh, i don’t actually care. it was an enormous labour from a whole lot of insanely proficient individuals making an superior sport. why would i care a few bunch of talentless freaks hating on it?”
Evidently, the reply, which has now been deleted, didn’t go down very nicely, as individuals rightfully identified that referring to individuals disliking the sport as “talentless freaks” was an immature approach 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 towards criticism that Discord was closely influenced by DEI beliefs. Nevertheless, it is also 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 focusing on, the consequence is similar: it’s not an excellent search for a sport that wants all the nice publicity it may possibly get proper now. Harmony may 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 at the least a number of seasons of content material, in any case.
Proper now although, the fact 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 a success 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 provided to PS Plus Further members? Or will Sony attempt to trip it out?