Just tried Highguard as it could be the last few days to try it out. The biggest issue (outside of being bland) is melee combat.

You have to press twice to break walls and mine minerals. Hit + precise second click for it to work. In a fast-paced FPS with horses. Absolutely breaking the immersion and flow.

And on my 5070 and Ryzen 5600x I can barely play it in native QHD resolution (unless I want 40-60 FPS). With blurry DLSS setup it is floating at about 90.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3673200346
#GameDesign@GameDEV
#Multiplayer@GameDEV

Marathon free Beta gained over 140K CCU on Steam and quickly lowered to around 50K. The players are generally impressed with the polished shooting mechanics. So, a good game, right? Not quite!

The art direction is questionable and hard to use — the navigation patterns in the environment, the characters, etc. It's all over the place.

The overall gameplay loop is considered to be bland in contrast to the art direction.

#Bungie@GameDEV
#Multiplayer@GameDEV
#PlayStation@GameDEV

And after 12+ hours I changed the review to be positive, so Steam removed all the likes. You can drop yours ❤️

https://steamcommunity.com/id/rinocrosser/recommended/4128260

A bit of context: it's a very odd beast but it don't deserve the hate. A lot of things are done wrong or better be excluded. It seemed that they missed the feedback loop from the outside.

But when you get into the flow, you're gone. Despite a very limited set of features so far, it isn't getting boring the way The Finals did to me.

#Multiplayer@GameDEV
#GameDesign@GameDEV

The demo of Marathon is failing to retain players. And it's a free run of a generally paid game. As of now, nothing indicates that sales will be good. People have tried it — PlayStation fans, Bungie fans, but they didn't get the point.

My bet: 5-10K online upon paid release. What do you think?

#PlayStation@GameDEV
#Bungie@GameDEV
#Multiplayer@GameDEV

According to some sources, despite the initial reception the team was more confident even with dropping numbers: ARPPU (revenue per paying user) was much stronger than the usual one in the industry.

But now the daily peak is below 500 and the dips are below 150 on Steam. The game does better on consoles but the numbers are still going down even on weekends.

I'll definitely make a video about the whole thing in a few weeks.

#Multiplayer@GameDEV

The free Marathon demo is losing players daily. Unlike many other games, it failed to bounce back during the weekend and by Monday dipped to 18K (against 143K on its first day). That's 87% loss in less than a week.

The final game is planned to be paid and it doesn't look good for Bungie and Sony.

#Bungie@GameDEV
#Multiplayer@GameDEV
#PlayStation@GameDEV

Valve secretly revived Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Yes, CS2 is also available separately, but CSGO is much faster on old machines and players are extremely happy to see it.

Despite such a limited news coverage, the game already peaked at 61K CCU. Sadly, all Steam achievements are gone.

#Multiplayer@GameDEV
#Valve@GameDEV

My teammates

#Multiplayer@GameDEV
#meme@GameDEV

Apparently, Jeff quit when Activision Blizzard told him "either the game makes X profits by next quarter or 1000 people will be fired here and it's all because of you". Somehow it was not motivational for anyone.

#Blizzard@GameDEV
#Overwatch@GameDEV
#Multiplayer@GameDEV

I didn't even know it exists, but here we go: another co-op by Saber Interactive!

1. They nailed hordes of zombies (and only Saber can do them that well at these quantities)

2. They done a great job with cars thanks to Mudrunner/Snowrunner experience the company has in their sleeve. Mud and deformable terrain, deformable cars, winch, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EwH5-qqf6U
#Multiplayer@GameDEV
#coop@GameDEV

It seems that the best-selling game of 2025 is also losing players way too fast. In addition to layoffs, EA is launching a free week in Battlefield 6.

EA, let's be real: BF6 is good, 2042 was good after patches (about 2 years since the release), BFV was good about 1.5 years after the release, and I can continue. But this is still basically the same game as 15 years ago. Its current online is the real volume of people willing to play it frequently.

#Battlefield@GameDEV
#Multiplayer@GameDEV
#EA@GameDEV

Remedy made a tricky move: FBC Firebreak failed miserably but they provided it with the final update and promised to keep the servers up for years to come.

#Remedy@GameDEV
#Multiplayer@GameDEV

A very good take on duality:
- Looks good for active players
- Looks bad for bosses at SONY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6mJfpERH0s
#Bungie@GameDEV
#Multiplayer@GameDEV

Valve put CS2 on fire yet again: you lose ammo during the reload. Let me explain — even in casual milsims you don't, you just have half-empty mags in rotation.

It's generally compensated with more ammo but the community is concerned that the whole meta of the game will change. Some weapons will be completely obsolete and the gameplay can become too "safe", people will not rush-in instantly.

And rating matches are barely working. People are not used to the new system and lose ratings miserably. So only a few exceptionally good players farm there.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/730/view/532126482488623353?l=english
#Valve@GameDEV
#GameDesign@GameDEV
#Multiplayer@GameDEV

Still standing

#Bungie@GameDEV
#Multiplayer@GameDEV

And another great study on why BF6 (and some other shooters) feel wrong: bullets are much faster, they reach greater distances with no drop and it makes maps sizes and weapon classes irrelevant

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwpDN0fRvAA
#GameDesign@GameDEV
#Weapons@GameDEV
#Multiplayer@GameDEV
#Battlefield@GameDEV