Co-op hit Party Animals already has over 100k Steam players, but "mostly negative" reviews as players cite server problems and no offline mode

The recently-launched chaotic co-op game Party Animals already has a lot of concurrent players on Steam, but that hasn't stopped it from getting 'Mostly Negative' reviews. 

On September 20, Steam's former most-wishlisted game, Party Animals, was released. It's been a long time coming so fans have been eager to get started brawling with their friends - so much so that the game has already surpassed 100K concurrent players on Steam, as spotted by Knoebel on Twitter via SteamDB. 

You'd think the reception to Party Animals has been good, considering so many people were excited about this one, but its launch hasn't gone exactly as planned. If you head on over to the party game's Steam page now, you'll see that it's got 'Mostly Negative' reviews. There are a number of reasons why players are having trouble with this title, but the main ones come down to its servers, its monetization, and its lack of an offline mode. 

"I legitimately had a glowing review written out to post as soon as this silly game finally came out - but now all the problems arise," one review reads, "I can barely launch the game." The same player then goes on to say that they suspect there aren't any dedicated servers in the game as they "can't load into the game enough to take a single step of movement in the tutorial." There are plenty of other negative reviews discussing the same thing too, with some players reporting having to wait between 10 minutes and over an hour to get into the game at all. 

On top of server issues, players appear to be shocked by the price of the cosmetics and add-ons in Party Animals. For instance, this player claims some skins can cost up to $30 - that's on top of the $20 that you paid to play the game in the first place: "30$ for a SINGLE skin... no shot. Game is fun, but not worth this trash shop."

Another huge disappointment to Party Animals fans is that there doesn't seem to be an offline mode, despite the fact it was promised prior to release: "I am seriously tired of games advertised as having singleplayer not being playable offline because they need to sell their microtransactions," one frustrated player writes. 

"Incredibly cute characters, decent gameplay, and charming graphics," another review reads, "however, most cosmetics are locked behind lootbox eggs and microtransactions which puts a very sour taste on what would otherwise be a fun cheap party game. They've really missed a trick here!" It seems if developer Recreate Games ironed out these initial complaints, they could salvage what was once an incredibly anticipated game. 

Find out what we thought of this one with our Party Animals review.