We Happy Few scores a 4/10 on Gamespot; did MS make a mistake?

https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/we-happy-few-review-joyless/1900-6416956/

THE GOOD

An intriguing setting with suitably eerie imagery

Individual character stories eventually pay off in a satisfying way

THE BAD

A massive number of technical issues

Quest design is one-note and consistently boring

Far too many crafting options with no justification

Combat is shallow, and stealth feels borderline broken

Distinct lack of central design focus with conflicting mechanics

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This is the same company that MS just recently acquired. Did they make a mistake, SW? Not a very flattering review for their second game. Was anyone looking forward to this?

Compulsion and Undead Labs were both bad purchases. They bought them for GP filler. Nothing more.

Seems being former anything holds no water for quality.

Disgusting a 4/10?

Nope, not a mistake. This really isn't getting reviews far departed from their first game. This is a studio with a great art style and creativity, but lacking in polish. I think the biggest issues they have are ones that can be solved with the proper support of a major publisher like MS and look forward to playing this, and, even more so, what they can do in the future with a top tier budget and development support.

They tripled the price on Steam and hid the metacritic score when it started it to dive.

Still in top sellers sadly.

No developers sets out to make a bad game. It certainly looked like great concept from early trailer but I guess it just didn't come together.

But I wouldn't necessarily see that as a reflection on the Devs look at another 4/10 like Knack that was developed Mark Soreknee and he's amazing.

Tried the early access, the score is no surprise.

MS know what they are doing. They are trying to fill Gamepass with content even if the content is trash. Seeing the reception Sea of Trash and State of Flopbone Decay 2 got from the lem community they know lems will hype anything lol.

I think this developer has some quality they probably need more support. They will get it now. But just like with Sony 1st party it's not just AAA titles.

What do we expect from gamespot

That is sad.

It's disappointing to see so many technical glitches in a game that spent so much time in early access. You'd think they would have been able to work these out before going live.

-Byshop

MS buying a dev with glitches in their games some things never change.

Glad I didn't buy it.

sounds about right. MS has been putting out a lot of 7/10 games so, buying a studio that pushes out a 4/10 is a perfect buy for MS.

Oh snap “Far too many crafting options with no justification“

@tryit will love this

GG was crap when Sony bought them and they ended up making the amazing Horizon ZD. Give them a chance guys. It's amazing what proper funding, support, and peace of mind can so cor a studio

Meh. I’ll wait and see what they produce now that they are a part of Microsoft Studios before I make any judgments.

@navyguy21: yeah, Rare did the amazing, filled with contents sea.of thieves

Good. I did not like how the development of this game was handled.

From what Ive read they aren't buying these studios to just leave them to never improve them. Its easier to buy lower cost studios and help build them then try to buy CDPR for Pete's sake.

I bought into this game in preview and believed it was poor then. I have been playing it a little since launch and its better but its a mediocre game imo. Great idea and setting. But its doesn't hook me with gameplay

I get what youre saying and I understand.

I have confidence in MS NOW compared to before because they changed a ton of their previous corporate executive leadership and put people who understood gaming in charge. Phil has done an amazing job since he took over.

Were there crappy decisions and investments in the pipeline? Of course, and Spencer cant just scrap those.

I think he is making the right investments while still "trying" to release content for the Xbox.

Sea of Thieves was pushed on Rare before Spencer.

Rare wanted to make traditional, weird games again but the old leadership wanted this multiplayer focused direction.

They were trying the same with Fable for goodness sake.

I think he new MS leadership is taking MS and Xbox in a more positive direction.

In the now-infamous speech, Spencer went into detail about the culture at MS previously and how the company as a whole had to change or fail. I know you still hate MS, but you should listen when you have time

MS at this stage is literally buying anyone who will sell. Just so they can say they have more studios than Sony going into next gen. Anytime someone laughs at Xbox on a message board Phil thinks throwing money at the issue will change the narrative. Buying all these studios means nothing if they're pumping out bad to mediocre product.

Let's see how many of these devs survives next gen.

Seems in line with their other studios this year, so no, they haven't.

@uninspiredcup: Yeah it's very sad indeed to see people support original games as well as not just allow review scores from crap outlets like Gamespot to be shoved down their throats.

I'm frankly disgusted by these facts. Don't people know Gamespot has people's best interests in mind when writing 5 Fortnite articles per day ?

I've been playing it, its missing things to do, its just go to a to b, but it takes 15 minutes to walk and theres nothing to do inbetween but walk. No issues either and I didn't download the patch.

Five?

I'm trying this game out anyway, since I am really interested in exploring the world and I already bought it in Early Access anyway. I don't know if I agree with all of the review yet, but holy crap are there technical issues. The opening cutscenes had audio sync issues for me (sound was lagging behind by about two seconds). Also, one of the early cutscenes stuttered and cut out early. Plus the load times between major area/level changes is measured in minutes rather than seconds. The EA version didn't have a lot of these problems. I may put it down for a while to see if they resolve these problems.

-Byshop

Strange thing is they worked on this game for over 4 years !

And still it feels like this game needed more time in the oven.

Still I'm liking a lot of what I'm seeing, it's this unique game that I'm totally in the mood for playing right now. It's a mash of genres, but also a genre of it's own: Since it's more about social conformity and social interaction than combat or crafting/survival.

Some of the abilities you can unlock has me laughing out loud, like smothering people in their sleep, or talking your way out of a pickle.

I love the idea of it. It's got a very "The Prisoner" vibe to it, even down to referring to the area as The Village. It wouldn't be the first game I liked because of the concept in spite of numerous issues. *cough* Vampire Bloodlines *cough*

-Byshop

Reviews seem to be pretty mixed... Game Informer gave it 7.75, IGN 7.3 & Polygon really liked it too.

Anyway, I'll probably try it eventually.

I do think that studio has potential though. They just need some guidance... hopefully MS can help.

Half the complaints are about the bugs and the other half are about the survival/stealth combo. So maybe if they work out the bugs it will be rated significantly higher.

@navyguy21: Great vid. Thanks for the link.

Oh yeah another very devisive game like that this year was Vampyr; Many liked its concepts, a lot hated its execution.

My main draw for this game is definitely the atmosphere and vibe it's giving off. I can live with a technical error or half assed feature here and there, as long as the game is unique and peaks my interest in a way :)

They literally hid the metacritic score after it lowered. If it was scoring high, they'd happily be shoving Gamespot down your throat, probably with a big boastful quotation.

If a game's good it's good, bad it's bad etc... Unique doesn't by default elevate it above others for me, I've played plenty pf experimental artzy games that are garbage.

Ill take it with a pinch of salt since its a GS review, but ill be a bit disappointed if this game is actually as wank as they say it is. I was somewhat looking forward to this game.

The Microsoft curse..

@asylumni: looking at the negatives, only one is from lack of polish. The rest is just bad game design

The game itself is fine and I'm enjoying it thoroughly. What I am not fond of is when the game drops to what seems to be single frames, having buildings just appear in front of you or and falling under the surface and almost being trapped.

Looks like a perfect fit for the XFLOP brand

Lol. Sea of Piss and State of Trash

It also seems overly harsh. This review is the lowest that has been put out, and is done by an independent writer, not a staff member of GS. I haven't had the chance to play it yet, but complaining about too many things to craft that you don't really need to seems a bit petty. If you don't need to craft it and you don't want to, then just don't. Overall, the review reads to me like someone that got really frustrated by bugs and glitches making every little thing seem worse. I'm not saying if the games was polished to a sheen it'd be a 10/10, but at least a solid 7.5, verging on 8.

studios that sign deals with MS are the ones that dont get deal with Sony.

No, seriously. Devs always look to Sony first, and if Sony is not interested, they go to Nintendo. And if even Nintendo is not interested, its time to go to MS...

MS is always the last option, and thus, MS gets all the crap studios that arent good enough for quality conscious Sony or Nintendo.

And thats no troll, thats a fact of life.

Good troll

No seriously, that was really funny.

Some mainstream AAA games will do that.

crafting of items need to have a purpose other than something to put on a shelf like EQ2 does

Yeah but the Hype Meter wasnt bugged was it?..:)

marketing actually does work

I suppose we’ll find out in 3-4 years from now. But even if they don’t make an impact in their next offering, it’s a matter of what the price tag was when MS took over. The acquisition was hardly a blip on the radar for MS, they’re just throwing whatever they can at the wall over the next 5 years to see what sticks.

Seems like a nice studio, they will benefit with MS bringing them in. These smaller studios like Undead Labs will now have MS resources going forward and that will be a huge boost for these smaller studios that MS is acquiring.

Besides the score being low, seeing a positive reception with streamers/content creators. Def going to give the game a shot down the road.

the problem is they also have these companies telling them what to do.

and in my opinion these large companies are horrible when it comes to game design. again, my opinion