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It is then up to Hi-Rez to put in similar time and effort to bounce back Paladins. Rainbow Six Siege is evidence that a game can come back from a place some publishers would consider unsalvageable. However, five years later in 2020, it’s bounced back from the near-dead, to cement itself as one of North America’s premier esports. A bug-filled launch and lack of effective game balance plagued Rainbow Six Siege in its early years. The realistic tactical shooter has more than a tumultuous history. Supposedly dead games in the same genre have come back to life after both developer and publisher doubled down and actually put effort into the game (and Paladins is not exactly dead yet either).Ī prime example of this is Rainbow Six Siege. Is there hope?Īll hope is not lost for Paladins. Prophecy was shut down on July, its story beginning and ending before most people even knew about it. However, its player count never rose past 150 concurrent players, which can be attributed to a number of reasons, not the least of which being Hi-Rez not marketing the game much. Prophecy was an auto-battler, and although the market for autobattlers was saturated at the time, it had some good, original takes on the genre.
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Despite it being at least as full of promise as Hand of the Gods in my opinion, Prophecy met its fate on the chopping block even quicker. Perhaps even more tragic of a tale was that of Prophecy. The official servers supporting Hand of the Gods closed down early 2020, and the game is no longer playable. Sadly, a dwindling player base since then prompted Hi-Rez to give the game the ax. It was arguably full of promise, having made a perilous journey from open beta in 2017 to actually having a full Steam release in early 2018. Hand of the Gods was a hybrid of turn-based strategy and card game. Among the games to fall victim of this make-or-break policy are Smite-based strategy games Hand of the Gods, and Prophecy.
![steamcharts spellbreak steamcharts spellbreak](https://www.gamespace.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Spellbreak-Will-There-Be-Guilds-576x356.jpg)
However, what’s worrisome is their treatment of games, new or not, when they don’t perform to their expectations. Hi-Rez are no strangers to experimenting with new games. However, considering the track record of Hi-Rez killing games that aren’t guaranteed to be hits, we can’t hold our breath for that. I’m sure that given more time, resources and employees they’d be able to battle through the hard times and crank out the content needed to keep this game alive in the long run. I know that the developers at Evil Mojo are only human and can only do so much.
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Instead of player-requested features – like new game modes and new maps – Hi-Rez is limiting content for the next quarter to two new champions and a slew of cosmetic items. This has resulted in a rather barren roadmap of Paladins content going into 2021. Instead, though, they’ve lengthened the development cycle, changing from major updates every two months to every three months. They could be hiring more people or allocating more resources to help out the Paladins developers during this COVID-19 crisis. What’s a bit more depressing is how Hi-Rez is treating this data. The player count has dropped precipitously, going from a peak of almost 30,000 concurrent players in the middle of 2020 to pretty much half of those numbers now. The above graph is the player count of Paladins over the past year. Behold more ominous evidence of Paladins‘ decline. That’s not the only statistic we are looking at, however. That’s certainly healthier than some other multiplayer games I play, and a solid multiplayer game can thrive on much lower numbers. At peak hours, Paladins clocks in at almost 14,000 players, according to Steam Charts. Paladins still has plenty of players, don’t get me wrong. While not all hope is lost, there are a few solid reasons why I fear for the future of Paladins going into 2021. The pandemic has not made things easier for anyone, but things were not easy for Paladins to begin with.Ĭonsidering the state of the Paladins playerbase, and previous patterns in Hi-Rez’s game development, I believe I’m right to worry. I’m sure they’re doing their best in the current COVID-19-afflicted world. I’m not blaming this on the creatives or developers currently working at Evil Mojo. Don’t worry, this won’t turn into a bashfest.