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Stormgate's developers think there's "some emotion" behind its mixed initial reviews, and that players need to temper expectations that former Blizzard veterans would make another StarCraft 2.
In a new interview with Bloomberg, Tim Morten, who used to be Blizzard's production direction on games like StarCraft 2, reacted to Stormgate's initial reviews. Arriving last month after a crowdfunding campaign to the tune of more than $35 million, first impressions of Stormgate were incredibly mixed, and the game peaked at around 5,000 concurrent PC players on Steam.
"I think for an Early Access game to live up to where StarCraft II is today is not a reasonable expectation," Morten said of the mixed reception to Stormgate at launch. "But it’s still psychologically where people are at, and I totally get it, because we came from Blizzard and we’re very much setting out to build a spiritual successor. But, yeah, I think there’s some emotion behind that initial reaction."
Morten also points out that Stormgate has launched into Steam Early Access with a deliberate focus of attracting feedback for iterating. "I think creatively, we feel that we need all of this feedback to get to the point that the game can really shine. That's very much an iterative process. It’s not something we can just get right on the first swing," the developer explained.
Our own Stormgate review called it "a little messy and a little too complicated," noting that while it somewhat resurrected a nostalgic feeling for earlier Blizzard games, it was perhaps a little too referential to the developer's past hits. Stormgate does provide a solid real-time strategy experience right now, even if its gameplay is a little on the slow and muddled side.
