Stellar Blade is coming to PC, and developer Shift Up is using Steam Next Fest to show it off early. Perhaps unsurprisingly for a game that’s been so high-profile, it’s immediately proven to be one of the biggest demos of the Fest – on the first day, it topped two of Next Fest’s three charts. But since then, it’s been overtaken by a potentially unlikely candidate.
At the very start of this month’s Steam Next Fest, Stellar Blade was at the top of the Popular Upcoming chart, which sorts demos by their all-time wishlist counts. It was also at the top of the Top Demos chart, which measures daily user count. But while its generally high profile means it’s sitting resolute at the top of the former, it’s currently been dethroned on the latter.
Right now, the most-played demo is for Vindictus: Defying Fate. Something of a revival of 2010 Korean MMO Vindictus, Defying Fate is billed as a soulslike RPG. It looks like the combat is stylish, and that there’s a decent-sized open world to explore, but what’s peculiar about this demo is that while it’s topping Next Fest charts (it’s in the top ten according to both other metrics), its reviews don’t really match up to its success.
At the time of writing, Vicintus: Defying Fate’s reviews are sitting at a ‘Mixed’ verdict with just 46% positive scores. A pretty significant chunk of those negative reviews are focused on performance issues, which, while not ideal for an official demo, are the kind of thing you’d hope and expect would be fixed for a full release. But elsewhere, there are plenty of suggestions that the combat is more style than substance, and that this soulslike approach doesn’t really mesh with the MMO audience that developer Nexon is courting.
There’s also a chunky contingent of reviews – both positive and negative – that suggest the anime girlies are a big part of Defying Fate’s appeal. There’s an irony in this that I find enjoyable when considering what the new Vindictus game is up against at Next Fest, but I’ll be interested to see whether waifu appeal can keep it at the top of the charts even as those reviews appear to need improvement.
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