Death of a Game: Spellbreak

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#DOAG . Death of a Game is a series dedicated to uncovering the mysteries surrounding the death of a game or company. nerdSlayer defines the term "death" in the context of the show as either... 1. Literally dead. 2. Had a mass exodus of players and never recovered (expectations etc). 3. The company ceased to exist. We follow a timeline of events, to uncover clues concerning why a game or company doesn't do well, and attempt to put it all together at the end for a deduction explaining how or why the game failed based on the evidence gathered.
Sources:
/ 1541813686578434051
www.reddit.com/r/Spellbreak/c...
/ proletariat_inc
go.playspellbreak.com/blog/sp...
www.metacritic.com/game/pc/sp...
www.ign.com/articles/spellbre...
steamcharts.com/app/1399780#a... store.steampowered.com/news/a...
spellbreak.fandom.com/wiki/Pa...
store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/s...
www.gematsu.com/2020/07/spell...
www.polygon.com/23188013/spel...
www.rockpapershotgun.com/batt...
www.rockpapershotgun.com/last...
gamedaily.biz/article/1412/pr...
www.gamewatcher.com/news/spel...
www.destructoid.com/spellbrea...
screenrant.com/spellbreak-5-m...
www.gamerbraves.com/spellbrea...

[@nerdSlayerstudioss]

Head to thld.co/geologie_nerdslayer_0922 and take their free skincare quiz to save up to 70% off on your 30 days trial. Even better, join their new Geologie Galaxie community for more daily tips, giveaways and more at discord.gg/geologie. Thanks to Geologie for sponsoring today’s video! And thank you to those who continue support me and the channel!

[@Ofxzh]

I miss your old intro

[@leadingauctions8440]

You did not state how Frost faired on the tier list?

[@xXbaker115Xx]

Let's get one thing straight player unknown started the trend of BR with arma 2

[@TheEDFLegacy]

@@Ofxzh Same. NerdSlayer needs to either bring back the old intro, or get rid of the detective spiel. Considering the content of these particular videos, I find it ironic that NS would completely miss the point of what made his original intro so enticing and interesting, when so many of the video games he covers make the very same mistakes. Now it just blends in with the other channels that do similar content (ie. the "What Happun?" series) that does it better and more entertainingly. NS's voice works well in the original format, but now it just sounds robotic and uncaring without any of the visual flair that made it interesting and helps to engage the viewer. It also makes the mention of calling us "Detectives" cringy, when there is no reference within the entirety of the episode why we would be detectives in the first place. Between the Batman-esque intro, the film-noir style countdown to the beginning of the episode, the transitions that look like something out of one of those crime boards that police use, and the conclusion that shows the closing of the file, _that_ was what made me subscribe to the channel in the first place, combined with the narration that fit the motif. That is all missing now, with all of that replaced with a lack of transitions, and a very basic intro that I argue I could probably throw together in a half a day. Perhaps the most startling thing of all, is the complete lack of an identifiable persona (the black and white detective guy representing NS) in the new version. Unless something big happened behind the scenes (such as his animator and/or editor quitting, and them have the rights to the animations), I can't see any possible reason for the sudden and very noticeable reduction in production quality of the series. I don't watch these videos very often anymore, and I don't like them, in the hopes that NS notices.

[@geoDB.]

Unsubscribed: Your video content no longer interests me!

[@BaneHydra]

What I learned from watching nerdSlayer Studios: 1. Don't make an MMO 2. Don't make a hero shooter 3. Don't make a battle royale game

[@samwai3762]

unless you are hella rich

[@entysing6780]

This though.

[@grandconqueror5712]

4. Don't make it Epic exclusive.

[@spacecowboy7148]

if you have a good team, a lot of patience, and good backing then you can choose one and go down that path. takes all types to make games.

[@mp_click]

@@grandconqueror5712 yeah, as if this channel hasn't covered a million games that launched on steam and died lmao. Fortnite launched out of steam, and got absolutely massive, and other games like Satisfactory, WWZ and others had successful launches too. Its about games, not launchers.

[@MegaCygnusX1]

Shame, if they'd instead opted to do an open world single player ARPG with those aesthetics, I suspect they'd be developing sequels right now instead of being condemned to the Blizzard salt mines.

[@notimeforcreativenamesjust3034]

If it just wasn't a BR they would done amazing, think of a 3V3 moba-ish game

[@nikolowolokin]

@TheMasterZar the only similarities between the games you posted are their art styles. even the genres are different lol what exactly do you want?

[@MessiahOfRodents]

@@notimeforcreativenamesjust3034 you make it sound easy but an excellent fight focused 3v3 moba like has failed for other devs too (battlerite)

[@zohairjafar383]

@@nikolowolokin everything. He wants everything.

[@SacredDaturana]

Yeah. I really love the artstyle, and I was intrigued by the description of the mechanics on their Steam page. Not gonna play a BR though.

[@nickposting123]

Ah dude Spellbreak is one of few games that I was actually invested in, it's death is heartbreaking because the spell combat was unbelievably fun

[@suthiraksb]

Its concept is nice. But it should add other modes or improve to other game, like Magicka.

[@Sage16226]

I think it would've been better if it was an mmo

[@TrueGamer22887]

I had the chance to meet a few of the devs, they are Boston based and came to a school I work at to talk to kids about game development. They were super super cool and the kids loved it. Meanwhile I was sitting their holding my tongue wanting to ask why they would try to compete with Fortnite lmao, very appreciative of them and sad to see the game fail but man it was a misstep

[@Sage16226]

@@Jay9966 I know. I'm just talking about the feel of the game seemed like it would've been great as an mmo

[@markereyes]

@@TrueGamer22887 There’s no way I could hold myself from asking them everything about how and why they developed the game as they did without proper ranking, what they felt about their championship spending or why they didn’t keep the 9 v 9 TDM

[@voidcoupon6930]

Surprised you barely mentioned that they NEVER Implemented a new gauntlet that's what really killed it for me

[@chaoswraith]

Yeah I kept waiting to hear what exactly about the gameplay made players stop playing

[@alecsimpson5566]

@@chaoswraith To be honest even without new content the gameplay was still really good until the last major patch where they nerfed Levitating (leading to a lot less verticality). The biggest issues were mostly a lack of matchmaking at launch which led to pre-alpha players destroying new players and new players quitting, and then filling the lobbies with bots since all the new player quit.

[@noboty4168]

@@chaoswraith Sometimes, gameplay isn't the reason a game dies.

[@faisfaizal5194]

@@alecsimpson5566 The flight rune gave me the most fun out of every BR games I've played.. I'll miss those days

[@DS-ff6ze]

This is correlation vs. causation. The game didn't die because it lacked a new gauntlet. The game didn't get a new gauntlet because it just wasn't getting revenue.

[@CarlolucaS]

One thing that I would say to new developers is to make single player games first with multiplayers modes and if the IP establishes itself you can than make a multiplayer game. A completely new BR out of nowhere has such a small chance of sucess. In this case with Spellbreak I can image a really dope single player game where you fight hordes of enemies with a bunch of spells.

[@Vaguer_Weevil]

Plus the oversaturation of them on the market, I'd imagine those who play those games aren't really looking to play yet another one. Especially if there's more focus on skill/strategy being involved than the ones they're already playing.

[@RanwulfMaxwell]

Hey man, is your name based on Luke Cage?

[@darkigg]

Nope. BR games just need a very big playerbase to be somewhat alive. But developers aren't gonna go and work for a few years on a game they don't wanna make just to build up an IP for a game they do wanna make. All they need for their game to be successful is just good marketing strategy, and they also need to keep player intrest in their game for as long as they want. That would require hard work, but that's better than making an entire game just to make an another one, that would require those things either way.

[@Mysot057]

You mean Soul Sacrifice Delta?

[@Warptrail]

@@Mysot057 I need that game remastered for PC.

[@MuffinPirateX]

Pre-alpha player here. Among all the reasons you listed (all valid) the most prominent one to me was always the lack of content. To launch buyers or just viewers of this video it might seem like there was a fairly quick response to the content need in the form of the new modes the game presented shortly after launch. However, what they don't know is that we pre-release players had already seen all this content months or even years before the game ever launched and had played it out, given our feedback to the pain points aaaand.... ultimately nothing really changed and it launched effectively as is anyway. The same story was true for the gauntlets which to new players were very diverse and intricate but to experienced players just were how they had been for years. This meant that beyond the initial hype of checking out a new update, there was nothing to keep experienced players invested in the game to prop up player numbers beyond whatever amount of running same old games they could tolerate. This left two crowds playing the game after every update's honeymoon phase, the new players who had largely only ever fought bots and then the supreme sweat diehard players who just never played anything else to stomp them in all their lobbies. With no middle tier of players to buffer the interactions, matchmaking just dissolved entirely to new players fighting bots who taught them nothing and then getting wiped out in the blink of an eye before they even knew what they did wrong by bored pre-release players who just want something engaging. For some reason rather than proper content, the devs chose to heavily focus on a lot of "story" content and were clearly far more fixated on lore than gameplay, which was readily apparent by the fact that most of their post-release updates were simply recycled stuff they'd already done with maybe a new coat of paint on it. We never saw a new gauntlet. We never saw any new classes. We really just didn't see any new content of any kind. Sadly, the most exciting thing to come out of post-release updates was an in-built short dash. That's it. Nearly 2 years of "development" and the most we had to show for it were stories nobody really cared about and the ability to hop a couple feet. Ironically the devs very clearly told us about these mismatched priorities by a passing community post. During the game's initial launch they'd posted a roadmap. I don't particularly remember all the specifics but there were 1, 2, and 3+ month benchmarks. The 1 and 2 month benchmarks were very minor and hit without issue, but on 3+ was "new gauntlets". Cut to 9 months into the game's life (6 months after that 3+ month mark) and they put out a community post showing off concept art of a new gauntlet, but also add the comment "However we're still not working on any new gauntlets at the moment". And that was really the moment I realized the nail was already put to the coffin and just waiting to be hammered by their own inaction. More and more months passed and not a shred of content. It got so bad that the Chapter 3 (their "battlepass") ran months after its end date without any announcement whatsoever of a Chapter 4 being anywhere on the horizon, which is what prompted the "Chapter 3.1" copout. At the end of the day the game probably could've easily survived had it simply had its head in the right space. I've watched plenty of big name streamers who could've brought in plenty of players say how much they love the game and express an interest to see its future only for there not to be any real future. All of the development resources just seemed to keep getting put towards the wrong things like it was more of a pretentious art piece that just assumed everyone was fully invested in the lore of the game to survive on that alone rather than any kind of actual draw beyond its novelty value.

[@DS-ff6ze]

The biggest issue with the game was just a lack of demand. The common criticisms of the game are just symptoms of a small playerbase. With more players, there would be matchmaking, a proper Ranked mode and no bots. With more players, they'd get the revenue needed to make more content. Devs probably focused on lore because they were strapped for cash and story content was cheap to make. Spellbreak was one of those hybrid games that never really hit hard with any audience. People who wanted BR's just played the bigger BR's. People who wanted hero/arena shooters just played those. The people who wanted the adventure/RPG theme played single-player games.

[@MuffinPirateX]

@@DS-ff6ze On the contrary, Spellbreak near universally received glowing reviews from players of all different kinds including big names that could've drawn in players such as like Shroud and the OTV crew, the same people who revitalized Rust's playerbase to the highest its ever been off their own influence. While the common problem from them WAS a lack of players it wasn't because nobody was interested in the game, but as I said because of a large barrier to entry that ultimately offered nothing to the ones who stuck around. With nothing to keep existing players around (except the diehards who didn't really ever play anything else) with the lack of a proper content cycle and a bad experience for new players when they can only fight bots or hyper sweats, it was inevtiable that playercounts wouldn't be sustainable. It's also simply not true that story content would arbitrarily be cheaper to make as it's not like they were outsourcing all their work. All the necessary components were there they just repeatedly got misappropriated for years. There was ample opportunity to make any sort of content splash for the game but priorities simply weren't where they needed to be. The failure of the game falls firmly on the developers themselves. Not the quality of the game or the apathy of players. Attempting to run a live service BR without a proper update in over 2 years in a market where every other competitor is pushing out new content every few months is a colossal failure on their part to understand the circumstances they were in.

[@DS-ff6ze]

​@@MuffinPirateX Spellbreak received praise and glowing reviews. But only from a vocal minority. It never had a large audience. Regarding the general population, many people felt like it was an objectively good game, but just wasn't their type of game. The people who liked exploration and open world maybe found the hypermobile combat too frantic. And the people who like arena/hero shooters maybe found the pace of a BR to be too slow. Your reasons are totally valid for the people who have played the game. But there are also millions of people who just never played the game or never played for more than hours.

[@FunnyfoxfromTunic]

Also a pre-alpha player. It was definitely the content drought. My brother and I would spend hours coming up with new ideas for gauntlets and how they´d interact with one another. But as the years went by and absolutely none were added, we simply got bored and stopped playing.

[@TrulyTails]

I played a fair bit of pre-alpha as well. I remember the lack of new content and really that's why I stopped playing. I thought I'd just wait until it had more. So after playing a bunch to be good at it so when it became popular, because in my mind it was going to be; I would have an edge up. I checked in every once in a while and it seemed like every time I did the new content was just lots of tweaks and reworks to existing stuff. That's fine and all, I remember reading countless times that things weren't final and were going to change rapidly. But I couldn't find a playstyle anymore, any loadout I used to like was worthless or couldn't keep up, my favorite runes were nerfed to the ground, and the whole movement debacle was confusing to me so I didn't know what was going on. So much hype and talk about new gauntlets really make it a bummer more and more when it seemed like they weren't actually coming. I remember a nature gauntlet quite fondly with talks of it being plant based with the likes of a whip attack. I really wanted this to be a new live service game I could sink my time into and hoped the game would take a competitive or even e-sport route. It didn't take long to see that wasn't going to happen. I had little interest in the lore; thought it'd be neat but they seemed to really push for it.. It did make me sad that we would get map "updates" and not new maps. I prefer outright new maps. All in all I hate this failed potential. A magic battle royal means you have so much creative freedom.

[@Genoh_]

Always wondered what Spellbreak would've looked like if it was a Quake style deathmatch game instead of a BR. Imagine instead of upgrading gauntlets throughout the game, you have access to all the gauntlets and could swap between them all by picking them up around the map. The combat of this game was it's strength and it being a BR meant that like, 70% of the match was just looting and looking for players. I know they introduced an arena mode, but that was already when the game was close to dead, so it split the already very tiny playerbase.

[@keonkla]

Ya as unique as spell break was IM so sick of BRS and wish Arena games became more popular.

[@colbyboucher6391]

I don't think it would have changed much- Most of it's issues are Quake's issues, as someone who likes both. They're not content-rich enough to keep people interested and making them more content-rich would mostly defeat the point. Just look at Diabotical. Really great modern Quake clone, innovated a bit by bringing tactical grenades like smokes, launchers and healing circles into the mix (and some cool game modes), died almost immediately.

[@kamikazemelon787]

this reminds me of Dark Messiah’s MP mode, similar. Or maybe Magicka deathmatch

[@Godofelru]

I hated that the game didn't have Matchmaking. Nothing like playing your first match against bots, then next game zoning in against TTV names with over 2000 hours in alpha + beta. I think matchmaking + a better format (deathmatch option instead or in addition) would easily have kept the game going. It played SUPER well, was fun, flashy and interesting.

[@sparemobius7430]

this game actually got me to make an Epic account to try it, and I hate Battle Royale games too. It is a serious shame that they didnt invest in something like a borderlands style of this, with single player story or something to learn it, I really enjoyed just screwing around with the ice movement stuff, just skating around everywhere. The mechanics were fun, I just wish it was used for more than it was. The battle royale part, yea I rarely found any person, I was just skating around looking for people, and most of the time never found anyone, one time I even got third and never shot at or even saw a single person, I just skated off a cliff and got 3rd place. Anyway I had my fun, got a few levels to see if it unlocked anything, and then deleted it, uninstalled epic and that was that. Shame really, it looked so good.

[@sladikk]

BRs are always go big or go home, more than almost any other genre. I'm surprised how many companies chased the trend in the past few years.

[@kennedymutiti1826]

Fortnite and Apex had so much success. It's like buying a really expensive lottery ticket with the hopes of multiplying your money astronomically. Some companies figured why not.

[@Bustermachine]

On top of what other's have said, you need a critical mass of players. And successful Battle Royals tend to hoover up the available playerbase and then retain them very well. Sadly, this also means that the genre won't create many, if any, cult hits that can be played by enthusiasts (if only for novelty) as the server side resources are shut down.

[@delfinenteddyson9865]

@@Bustermachine in principle they can also start small. Fortnite was a battle royal foremost by accident and other franchises also dabed into the BRs without going all in: CS:GO has a small BR game-mode that works pretty well with only a dozen players per game.

[@starvosxant4348]

The trend actually gives a nice money in the beginning of a new BR life, which is enough for the greedy devs.

[@sladikk]

@@starvosxant4348 assuming they can even get it off the ground of course

[@solortus]

This is the first game I played at its launch that's being featured on your channel. Such a shame it died, it had a cool concept. I stopped playing because I got busy with other things and when I got back no one was playing anymore rip :(

[@chrimony]

It's all your fault.

[@jakilla23]

Damn same exact thing with me. This game had so much potential and had a great art style.

[@Rumiiroomie]

it hurts :( the gameplay was really unique and i was finally getting good with the ice gauntlet!

[@itsmesky3545]

I played during pre-alpha. Despite the ping being really high at the time (no Asia server), I thought the game was really fun. Fast-forward a bit and I forgot about the game entirely, only remembering about it when I saw it on Epic after a friend had told me. I've only played a bit since then with my friends and just recently I got too busy to play basically anything, so I was really surprised to see this game on this video series.

[@AudioDreamCity]

This comment is probably the most current mega thread viable source of a community, then there’s discord. I believe in this game. Still won’t uninstall it ❤

[@AtmosFabula]

I distinctly remember reading a statement from the devs where they started that their original idea was not a BR, but an objective-based team game. Their reasoning for the BR decision was that they wanted to cut into the market with a focus on BR and then transition the game into what they wanted it to be

[@DragoonBB]

Focus on Battle Royal... When it was already starting to die out. Not a good move.

[@tonym.8069]

@@DragoonBB Dude, it sucks cause if they had just stuck their original thought, maybe a deathmatch that wasn't so big (even people back in the thing were warning about making it so big at the jump) among other game modes like some kind of turf war it still be around probably.

[@DragoonBB]

@@tonym.8069 That all would depend of if they can keep it updated regularly. Which is an advantage only big developers seem to have these days over smaller ones. When it comes to Online only games.

[@320oathkeeper]

Me if they stuck with close objectives and arena styles: YOU DARE ENTER MY DOMAIN TO STEAL MY CRYSTAL?! FACE MY BLAZING POWER!!!

[@mcgluckerson]

I wish the game originally focused on modes like payload or search and destroy instead of br

[@IchigoDeFolie]

I was a Pre-Alpha tester and played this game religiously. I played back when there was friendly fire, when people leap frogged in lobbies and when we played cabbage patch with poison and ice. My friends and I would constantly be trying to break records. Needless to say I LOVED this game. The biggest contributing factor in my opinion was devs just not listening to what we wanted for the game. Vets and new players alike would tell them we would like new gauntless, or certain things were too strong. And worse of all, the lowering of the skill ceiling to make the game more "mainstream". Resulting in what once was a fast paced creative game, turned into a clunky sluggish one. They just continued to ignore us. I personally quit during lighting meta.

[@BulletClubGaming91]

100% as a pre-alpha tester and as a once quote paid never paid content creator with dapper and the rest prol andy and the prol team. Never listened to us the new players hated us for our access to the game years before launch and how many wins and the skins we had. It scared alot of players off while also prol devs being so far left leaning and supportive of groups during that period of time they chose to donate money to them vs paying creators only later to go off and pay to play with made larger names and cancel all of us from our payments and gifted skin packs per month.

[@radicalsnake2813]

Got to agree on that. Also the game was extremely confusing with a whole lot of different objects that weren't easy to identify. This is also why Fortnite unlike other games are really easy to pick up, because even if the game is full of bullshit each object is easy to understand and to identify also from a distance and there aren't things with overcomplicated effects.

[@Jpeg_skeleton]

Yeah lightning made me quit as well.

[@HepodixUNITE]

Well said. I would argue that a WoW-style arena mode could've been a great alternative mode to the BR

[@Arcessitor]

@@BulletClubGaming91 Can you rephrase that first sentence, but this time try English?

[@Spaghetty]

Spellbreak couldve possibly lived longer or thrived if it were like a co-op looter type of game and dungeon crawl, with story driven aspects to keep players invested.

[@Lanzeon]

God I would’ve loved a co-op looter type game. Lord knows borderlands going downhill has left me craving them even more

[@zenixvampirchik652]

@@Lanzeon well there's few with various genres and all

[@RomGomLP]

When the game was in alpha, the devs said that they are planning to have the game be a story based game with loot etc. just as you mention, and that the battle royale is just a proof of concept for the fighting. But then well I guess they lied and it never happened

[@zenixvampirchik652]

@@RomGomLP as far as I remember blizzard bought them? Maybe that's why nothing come out of it

[@k3n179]

well, you just described Warframe, Destiny and Borderlands, and while i agree, we need more coop games, doing it rn is kinda shitty (the whole world is still recovering from the latest updates of Life, A.K.A Pandemic 2.0), the dungeon crawl type is nowhere nearly matured and has a potential for player gathering, but doing it is really hard, you have to be sure to make the game fair while still putting the difficulty up to fight, and as mentoned in the video, player retention sucks ass to those types of games, for a "new" project of a studio that has the size of Spellbreak's studio, it is incredibly difficult to put the content in a good pace, as players hate changes but also get bored of the same things all the time, i can't imagine a game wiht those conditions work well.

[@awesomejimthethird]

I played this back in beta and the whole time i thought. This would be so cool if it was an actual game and not a BR

[@barryallen2240]

Same

[@Exel3nce]

Exactly. Like a normal coop game

[@oguzcanoguz5977]

Yeah, it was like they actually implemented the foundation of a cool combat system with spells, but instead of making the rest of the game, just plastered Battle Royal template for it and then polished the visuals to launch. A fucking pity to because their foundation was actually good and there are way too few wizard games.

[@PhenonIV]

Man, I played this game a lot during the pandemic. It was actually really cool in the beginning. It had a high skill ceiling, but also a high skill floor. And with lobby's starting with less then 10 players it was just impossible to stay interested. RIP Spellbreak, may your idea's be succesfull elsewhere

[@colbyboucher6391]

Pretty much the Quake of BRs, as someone who's played both, died for the same reasons

[@Frewition]

Idea's is possessive. Ideas is plural.

[@honguyenhoaibao3676]

We have Forspoken now, not a BR but similar.

[@PhenonIV]

@@Frewition Im Dutch dude idk I learned English from the internet🤣

[@Larry]

I must confess I've never even heard of this game before. I must have seen it advertised, but glancing past screenshots, it's very easy to mistake it for Realm Royale. Also, bots stick out like a sore thumb in BR games. They love to do that "Duck Hunt" thing of Hiding behind a tree, popping out for a few seconds, then running back to hide over and over.

[@PunishedDad]

I consider myself lucky I caught Spellbreak featured on the Switch eshop and was interested enough to give it a go

[@Larry]

@@PunishedDad What happens if you boot it up now?

[@PunishedDad]

@@Larry I can still log in and mess around in the practice and tutorial modes, I can queue for a battle royale but not much hope on actually getting a match Guess if it's going to disappear into the void forever it might be worth booting up and playing around in practice to see how all the gauntlets and abilities work but the true rush came from using these things to fight other players Spellbreak had a lot of potential but the piss poor balancing is what made me and from what I saw many others drop it cold, I feel like the combat wasn't really suited to a battle royale and might have been better served in an arena PVP type game instead but now we will probably never know :/

[@ratlinggull2223]

They even use the same ugly font as Paladins / RR.

[@InkRose]

I remember the combat in this game being really tough for me to get the hang of, personally. It felt unusually hard to get in hits on the enemy players, and hard to practice the combat well, since when you died you’d just go back to the menu screen. I just didn’t feel like a BR was suited for this type of unique combat. A single player game would have been a better start, imo.

[@Straviradius]

Alternatively, a TDM game would have worked too.

[@DrPonk]

The general consensus for this game is and was always that literally any other game time besides battle royale would have been great for this concept but they wanted to ride the wave and forgot a board

[@grimsdol4665]

I remember giving them feedback on there discord server and i pretty much said that this whole reaction based system is wasted on a BR game as the novelty of it where's off quickly and what happens is that you just end up being yet another BR game, which isn't what you want, this game had potential, just not as a BR game and should've looked at other genres instead of joining a trend

[@weirdalexander8193]

I remember this… Keep the element mixing and add more moves, and you could make a heck of a stylish action game. Perhaps the plot would be a snarky alchemist’s assistant trying to free his mentor from the evil empire that kidnapped him, while beating up monsters based on his research.

[@ImR3DACT3D]

Somebody hire this man, dont care who it is

[@BiG-JuPO1O1]

That what we need but the game is going bye bye 😭

[@DivineBanana]

I remember being very intrigued by the advertisement for it, but I just kept telling myself "eh, I'll play it later." Aside from borrowing the arena shooter and battle royale gameplay, it seems incredibly unique with magic instead of bullets, gauntlets instead of guns, all sorts of fun spell combinations and a totally unique art style! Now I suddenly get this video in my feed and had no idea it's already dead while still in it's infancy. What a damn shame, and I'm kicking myself so hard right now for never getting around to playing it.

[@elijah__]

dont feel bad. the game you would've played wasn't actually spellbreak. spellbreak died way before they put any ads out. pre alpha and alpha gameplay was no exaggeration a million times better. they catered to casuals too hard and ruined the gameplay, that 80% of veterans to quit. they killed their dedicated fanbase while simultaneously failing to attract a new one

[@NightmareBlade10]

Pretty much my thoughts. I was super interested in the gameplay that I saw and played in the pre release alpha. I messed around in the tutorial/sandbox area, got into a couple games, then quickly lost interest because I never liked battle royales.

[@GreenHam77]

Loved the combat in this game. Played until the end of Season 1 when they got rid of Clash. For such a high skill ceiling, getting booted back to lobby on death in the BR mode made me want to take few risks or engage in said combat for fear of wasting time loading another game. The deathmatch mode gave me more chances to learn and improve without much risk, and it was some of the most fun I've had in a game in a while. It really feels like the devs had a massive uphill battle and lacked a clear vision on what would keep people engaged or draw new players in. RIP Spellbreak. Hope this concept isn't forgotten and someone else can take up this mantle.

[@SourRobo8364]

If this game had a single player mode, or even a 1-4 player horde mode, the game could have been more popular.

[@zacharyshields977]

This game will always hold a special place for me. I played nonstop from launch for months but eventually, the constant choices to lower the skill curve robbed the game of what made it unique. Truly my favorite game of all time, really too bad to see it go.

[@apehawk]

I don't know what would be worse, playing the games on this channel before their shutdown and experiencing their closures as they unfold, or hearing about these games that look really interesting while knowing that they've already shutdown. Either way, it sucks.

[@MDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMD]

Worse to never get to try it. I played a fair amount of Prey (1.0). It was fun. I'm glad I have the memories of it.

[@DrPonk]

In this case, the former. It felt much worse to be so invested in and hopeful for this game and to lose that slowly but surely over time as problems became blatant and prevalent and development clearly stagnated with no clear sign of improvement in any foreseeable future, like it was just forgotten. It's like watching a loved one gradually kill themselves with substance abuse. You can have sympathy for those with the stories, but it's far worse experiencing it first-hand and knowing it won't get better.

[@Sagplaya]

The servers shut down for good on Jan 9. I mean its dead but you can still give it a try

[@ubermaster1]

I remember getting invited to the closed alpha at launch and inviting some friends to play, Was truly really fun but it just refused to evolve with the times. Barely anything new ever introduced other than skins, which in all honesty weren't all that good looking anyway. The game devolved cause it just didn't EVOLVE. All the spells the game had(other than movement abilities), it's all the game had, no new attack spells and it boggled my mind considering how much imagination and ideas you can have by having magic be your weapons on top of element combos. And when they made that Reddit post basically saying "It's closing, but hey we made an amazing game", I was dumbfounded, cause they basically made a decent game, and never tried to increases its popularity ever.

[@DS-ff6ze]

I wouldn't say they didn't try. The game just lacked content because the devs lacked funding. This is the risk of a smaller and newer studio making a BR. Having a game that's free-to-play but also requires the devs to regularly release free content to keep the playerbase afloat just isn't sustainable. This business model becomes profitable once there's a big playerbase, but it's an uphill battle starting out.

[@99loolill]

Somebody needs to steal the ice sniping bow mechanic. The rhythm of shooting that thing then accelerating on the ice trail left underneath it was so satisfying... It also left you very trackable, admittedly.

[@Scriptman777]

Such a shame that the mechanics and world of this game weren't made into some singleplayer game. It felt so fun to play. Edit: Or thinking about it, an arena match-based game instead of hoping on the BR train.

[@cariandi]

I would have LOVED to check out this game if it had had a single player offline component. The art style, the music, the gauntlet combat... it looks so intriguing. Sad.

[@RespawningJesus]

At first, I thought the game was going to be an arena shooter. When I saw that it wasn't, then I immediately lost all interest.

[@SourRobo8364]

I can't believe WoW is still getting expansions. What is it that people keep playing that freaking game.

[@bartin7222]

Time/emotional investment, almost 100% guaranteed regular updates in the future, realistically always enough players for it to feel alive, solid combat/graphics, nostalgia

[@Tyanu_Khah]

I was there gandalf, i was there a thousand years ago when the pre alpha of the game was still called Longshot. I really liked it. I thought the concept was great. And then, they moved to being a Epic game exclusive. Everything went south after that.

[@Kwyjiboable]

Really shows the Epic Store being a marketing blackhole is that even tough Im fairly up to date with gaming news and releases, especially when it comes from smaller devs, I never heard about this game before.

[@capnhappy]

Epic had very little to do with the death of Spellbreak

[@doctorsilva1345]

You never heard about this game because it was another battle royal. A over saturated genre already. When PUBG became popular shit ton of BR games started to come out.

[@SnesySnas]

Full agree, there's also so many good concepts that probably would've done alot better if released outside of Epic

[@Arkx919]

Maybe Spellbreak would’ve lasted longer if they didn’t go for the deal. Who knows? I personally don’t bother with anything that becomes Epic Exclusive, but Spellbreak looked like it was a fun game back when it was first announced.

[@jed949]

Tbf, game was like announced almost every expo before it came out

[@YaBoyYeti]

I liked Spellbreak. It was a fresh take on BR. What turned me off was the implementations of bots. They were basically running lootboxes. The minor gameplay issues and balancing was something I was able to ignore.

[@MikoHecate]

I also hated the spam of fortnite ads from EGS. so I just uninstalled them both.

[@xXvironXx]

I imagine that Bloodhunt will find its way to this series soon enough, given the genre chosen, timing, exclusivity, and the simple fact that nobody (who was a fan of the IP) asked for it lol

[@colbyboucher6391]

Ohhh yeah

[@hoked2194]

I am genuinely shocked that someone thought it was a good idea to market a BR to VtM fans... Are they allergic to RPGs since the VtMB2 scuffle or something?

[@xXvironXx]

@@hoked2194 Honestly, the whole IP has been horribly mismanaged for years, imo. Hilariously enough, making a BR in a setting focused on subterfuge isn't even the most tone-deaf thing they've done lol

[@hoked2194]

@@xXvironXx What else did they do? I stopped keeping up with VtM after the business with Bloodlines 2.

[@kleitos6162]

There's an alternate universe where Spellbreak's final version was an arena shooter a la Splitgate or Halo and it ended up being amazing. I am very envious of that universe. But seriously, if the fantastic gameplay Spellbreak had was tied to literally anything other than another Battle Royale I would've played the shit out of it.

[@dantr14]

Having played the game i it had some good ideas but for me personally it needed more stuff more spells in particular

[@micah459]

What I've learned from Overwatch, Apex, and Fornite is that you always focus on Cosmetics, Characters, Maps, and new games modes when it comes to updates. Players will immediately pick a game back up if a new character or cosmetic is revealed.

[@carb0xyde887]

And weapons and items too, since they also play a part in shaking up the game

[@FlyXcur]

They couldn't do that because they got bought out so the moment they said things were shut down the store was disconnected meaning the only way to buy cosmetics was to earn the in-game Currency to buy it. You couldn't spend money on this game if you wanted to.

[@micah459]

@@FlyXcur I'm talking about in the beginning

[@CrazySuperJEBUS]

@@alexandrebelair4360 They had cosmetics, but none of them were very interesting yet they were still priced the same as other games with much more interesting and inspired skins like Apex or Fortnite. I played the hell out of Spellbreak but felt no desire to buy any cosmetics.

[@Defaign]

I noticed a few things :P 1. You mentioned making the game more niche by catering to the more loyal / hardcore playerbase but you also pointed out it was failing due to a lack of players. My point here being that adding bots isn't a bad idea per say and I believe Fortnite also uses bots for at least the first few games to ease new players into it or though I can understand the frustration for a veteran player. 2. The only reason why I know of Spellbreak is because 1 single streamer that I follow out of hundreds. Played the game for a couple of days. Where was the advertisement for the game ever? I would have never even known about it had that 1 streamer not played it for a couple of days where I felt like I had nothing else to watch :p 3. Actually watching the game very rapidly made me realize that it was too fast paced for me and I simply wasn't looking for a 3rd person BR Magicka (on the off chance people remember Magicka). That being said I recognise I was not the target group. But that leads me to wonder who the target group was? Is it Quake fans? Tribes Ascend fans? Once you take the gun aspect out and replace it with magic I feel like you automatically shave off a large portion of those playerbases. Which strangely enough should have attracted me as I much prefer medievel / magic over modern warfare guns or futuristic warfare. Either way intriguing video as always :) hope u have a good day.

[@YoutubeCommentor1]

Followed this game from the early alpha test days and I already knew of the dev studio prior to this game even being announced. They have a bad habit with all their projects, which you can see btw on their site, of chasing streamer trends and making games made for streamers instead of just making genuinely good games. I really wanted to like Spellbreak but with how the advertising was handled, I saw the writing on the wall and jumped ship. Still sad to see this go the way it did but anyone could have seen this.

[@neh1234]

To be fair, studios that just want to make a good game without resorting to streamers or esports to get famous are fewer and fewer as time goes on. At the end of the day, popularity and money is with that kind of behavior.

[@aristedes9449]

They're champagne socialists, of course they're trend-chasing morons.

[@NautilusXO]

For me personally, (on the Switch) there were serious bugs and lag in random matches. One game I'd get 7 exiles, the next I'd get permanently stuck on the geometry of the level and die to the storm, the next I'd rubberband into a fireball that one-shots me. Instead of getting better with time, it seemed to get worse. The occassional bug was alright because it was so fun, but frequent bugs partnered with steep prices for ANY cosmetics and story content, it was all too much.

[@ZombieTreder]

Ugh, this is the first death of a game you've covered for a game that I switched to after the death of another game that I love which you've already covered (Gigantic). If you stuck around r/Gigantic for a while after that game died, then this, Project Stamina and what ended up becoming Die After Sunset were advertised to you heavily with easy alpha access to any of them. I settled on Spellbreak because they hit similar aesthetics and really fell in love with the game. Unfortunately, the same thing that always happens with battle royales that I enjoy happened; one day I was just kinda done with playing. I was always kinda hoping it would eventually pop off, but here we are. RIP to another great one!

[@deez9888]

A moment of silence for Spellbreak and Hyperscape, they could of had so much potential 😭😭😭

[@NightmareBlade10]

I have no idea why publishers keep assuming that battle royale players want fast paced games with good skill based combat and mobility mechanics. That's the wrong target audience. BR players love camping and ganking others. Quake style arena deathmatch players would love games like Hyperscape or Spellbreak because the combat is actually fun and they put gameplay first.

[@ozzcoremidmx8287]

Finally, a game that I used to play, lol! Spellbreak mechanics were very innovative and I LOVED the concept. I would have loved to see it in an ARPG or a Team/solo deathmatch multiplayer game, the BR genre was not appealling to me so I dropped the game after a couple of months invested in it. Another thing that may had condemned the game is that this game was released just a couple weeks before the most popular "f2p" game in Q3: Genshin Impact, which also included an elements gameplay.

[@enchantking]

ohhhh yeah i remember being hyped for years cause it'll be like the avatar of BR. Then the game launched even bought the battle pass. However, I remember being more hyped on genshin during that time. Sad an untimely launch indeed.

[@pizzanachos101]

I actually got into Spellbreak because I loved the elements aspect of Genshin, but the changes and nerfs caused me to drift away from Spellbreak

[@TheGodEmperorOfMankind_]

I was pretty interested in this before release, they then decided to dump steam and I straight up never heard of it again until it was shut down, it must have gotten actually no marketing. I even thought it was B2P until now. Shame, wanted to give it a go

[@razorflossrazor2937]

It was fun for what it was. It just came to late and had to little updates to keep it alive. It's sad because the core was strong and it's magic system was fun as hell.

[@chaostaketheworld]

this game was really fun the first week of launch i played it, was so fast paced and the verticality made it so enjoyable. rip spellbreak

[@cam_like_ham]

I specifically remember trying Spellbreak for the first time at the EGS launch and falling in love with the concept, but I got the sinking feeling right away that tough to scale into a long term success. Innovative gameplay can take you so far, but it was so unclear how they were going to stick around without overhauling the barebones setting or shaking up the established 6-gauntlet system. All of the other troubles they ran into during development were the cherry on top for me.

[@yol_n]

hey nerdslayer, what if we had the series "death of a game", but more positive... like, "revival of a game"? Few titles comes to mind such as final fantasy and destiny.

[@GnasherShark]

Something that wasn't mentioned which made me quit playing was the talent system. By playing classes a lot you would get unique talents that you could equip on any class. This meant that if you wanted to get your best in slot talent you had to grind out games of a gauntlet you didn't like so you could play properly. Locking gameplay mechanics away from new players in a hyper competitive game just makes it harder to get into.

[@elijahsanders7362]

It’s “fine” if you were playing dragon fire cause all the talents you’d want were in fire and poison so you rarely changed the battle style. The devs basically said if you don’t want to grind you better play dragon fire and NOTHING ELSE

[@antisocial7832]

5 minutes in, but I blame exclusivity to epicgames. Thank you for killing this game. Edit: wow after it went exclusive I detached myself from the game, no idea the other things happened. Great video as always, Thank you.

[@nakazo9929]

Same as me. I've played when it had it's exclusive launcher but after they announced that it was going to be an Epic exclusive i've just unistalled it and never played it again

[@dr.wiggler]

2k + epic + battle royal + bot or cheater This is the recipe of some hated most, maybe it would have much better result if this were a “team up and roll out” game kinda like risk of rain or gunfire reborn

[@asturias0267]

I'd never heard of this before, but it looks like a lot of fun. It could've been a really unique arena shooter. That genre has been neglected in recent years, and could do for a good revival.

[@34Francoa]

Battlerite was soooo fun and it did need a chill mode that battleroyal they added felt nice but should of been a addon(not paid), this game felt unique and fun I wish I got more time with it. I think what you hinted at on the halo part was forge, adding a sandbox mode or mod support if there is a community they will throw passion into you're game and free content with the tools you give them.

[@matthewboan616]

This is a game i really enjoyed playing. Kinda painful to see it show up for a viseo.

[@HearMeOutGuy]

First video I’ve watched from you and you hit every single point I was also thinking of and more, great video ❤

[@tdotsmooth]

I think the biggest problem is there's only so many people who want to play Battle Royale games. Most of those people have a preferred Battle Royale game that they play and the rest of us are kind of sick of Battle Royale games.

[@Lexinoz]

Spellbreak was an excellent concept, the interactivity of elements was really cool. But yes, it died out for lack of players, and the bots felt really cheap.

[@curlybridger]

subbed as soon as i saw the title. this video needed to be made because that game was really great and actually had some steam. unfortunate ending to a really special br. Hope they can revive her one day.

[@CErra310]

"Epic Exclusive" is the equivalent to finding a suicide note in a "murder case".

[@nexferna7695]

I think the one thing that killed it was the decision to make it a Battle Royale. The only way to support a BR is to constantly supply content. Fortnite (despite what you may feel) does this excellently. They pull characters from franchises all around the world and in terms of gameplay, while they may sometimes reuse basic guns like assault rifles, shotguns, etc. Events always supply something new cool gimmick or weapon that’s fun. You need a massive dev team dedicated to things like balance, map design, bug testing, all kinds of things. Spellbreak never even added a single new gauntlet and that alone tells you that the dev team weren’t able to support a BR. They had very little new content and as thing slowly dried up, so did the game’s player base. Had they just made the game literally ANYTHING other than a BR. They might’ve survived.

[@akumajigoku1489]

Played since the release on PS4 the base game was awesome but for me it's like whoever was making the decision was really dumb didn't play the game and never listened the community, just adding new gauntlet, Runes and map was all the game needed, one of my biggest deception of 2021.

[@kokujoman5025]

I work with a guy who tried to get me into this game when it came out n I told him straight up it wasn't gonna be a contender and it'd be dead within a year. I've wondered when this game was gonna get covered in this series.

[@coloryournight]

shame cuz it’s actually an amazing game

[@CoconutmilkFilms]

Another great video with good insight! I remember testing Spellbreak at launch, but ultimately the projectile-based, vertical combat had a steep learning curve for someone used to regular FPS multiplayer games. It's a shame, as I liked the fantasy concept, would've been interesting to see how a similar concept would've worked as a regular team-based multiplayer game or a singleplayer campaign or something else.

[@MikhailHudon_ZerithFarron]

I truly loved this BR. It was the only one I was willing to stream for the longest time.

[@thegamingfan5222]

Loving this series to death! I actually remember this game seeming cool, but it wasn't advertised at all so I forgot about it.

[@utoherozv]

If I recall a ton of players got extremely upset when they deleted the movement from game. It really did not feel good to go from a fast paced beta to being grounded soon after release. :( I think I left when that happened, so I have no clue if they fixed it later.

[@thesamuraiman]

This saddens me. I loved this game. It was such a unique take on team games and battle royales, in my opinion. It was very fun, even when I lost early. The art design was really good

[@SaltyOctopus]

Great video nerdSlayer. As a Quake 3 veteran, I was really excited to see this game and I was one of those very early adaptors. I played it when it was doing a ton of closed alphas. I think it is important to note just how much those players would contribute to the "skill gap" issue you mentioned. By the time the game came to Epic, some of those players had been playing for months or even a year or more. The first 3 or so matches seemed to go well, but as soon as the game opened up to the population, it was a nightmare for casuals or people trying to learn the game. I think this is one of the biggest contribution factors to the games downfall. I personally brought 6-7 friends to play it with me and ALL of them quit after 2-3 nights of the game because it was way too "sweaty"... This was day one, mind you. Between that and the jump to Epic, I could see the doom of this game from a mile away. Although it happened WAY sooner than I thought. Thank you for the great video. Since you're an arena shooter fan, you may want to look into Diabotical. Copy+Paste of Q3A and a very similar Epic release at the same time that died very fast. Cheers.

[@stinkbanana2522]

Ah yes the, Epic "we have no confidence in our game" Store. Wonder why it was DOA lmao

[@SmeltingMoons]

I can already tell I'm going to feel sad. Putting together the last clips I had of the game felt like a nail in the coffin for me. It was/is one of my favorite games, I'd drop everything I play now to really invest time into it. Very unfortunate the way things have turned out.

[@cactuslord1589]

Same such a great community sad to see it going offline.

[@jesselee4453]

I think you nailed it on the head with the lack of downtime point. Spellbreak had the potential to be an EXTREMELY competitive niche game for the true sweaty nerds out there, no one can really doubt that. It lacked the playground aspect though that games like Fortnite or Paladins BR had in other game modes. Kids can talk about how cool Fortnite is whether they're playing the PvE game mode and building stuff or the Battle Royale. Spellbreak instead watered down what they had by adding bots in order to half address two problems, when in reality more game modes and/or downscaling the number of players required to launch a BR match would have been not only safer but better in the long run - though clearly eats up a lott of dev time and all the while players were bleeding. It's a shame but Spellbreak didn't get started in a fair environment and the devs did and are doing what it takes to achieve success as a game development studio, rather than what it takes to make a uniquely good single game or IP. I look forward to seeing what they do AFTER Dragonflight personally as they do have a great deal of talent. Spellbreak was in a league of it's own during a time when it shared a genre with GIANTS of the industry, unfortunately the developers didn't care about little league.. they wanted to join the pros.

[@rascalnotwascal7737]

Loved the Case Closed theme song🔥 Excellent video!

[@XXNNssTIMis]

Such a shame, honestly I hope someone will do something similar to this but in another format , time will tell, but honestly this is one of the few projects that got me excited for video games ( quit playing games around 2015) and it s sad to see it gone

[@windebiesteultima3317]

Might I ask why you stopped gaming all together? Life got in the way?

[@XXNNssTIMis]

@@windebiesteultima3317 yeah pretty much. It s way too much stuff that happened between then and now but i lived the most chaotic lifestyles possible. I settled down now

[@paegr]

It seems the pattern is that trying to make “modern FPS but with Quake movement” is an instant death sentence

[@DawnSentinel]

I'm actually really glad you brought up the burnout issue. I've held the same view for quite a while based on my experiences and never heard anyone else mention it. I haven't played Spellbreak, but I've found it to be a common issue with games that implement skill based match making in casual modes. In your standard ranked and casual game, I would go and play ranked, get good competitive matches, and sweat my ass off. When I'm tired of the high amount of stress and focus required to play at a high level, I can always go and play a casual non ranked mode, use some off meta stuff or a meme loadout and relax, I'll win some and lose some, but the level of play is much less intense. On the other hand, when SBMM is implemented in casual modes or both modes, it means that I can't relax in the game as my opposition is always trying their hardest and my maximum effort is required to either carry my team or simply compete, so I'm forced to either sweat, get perma stomped with no hope of winning, or not play. I cannot maintain full sweat forever, and I can't remain interested in the single most meta strategy, weapon or character forever, so it just means that I play less.

[@TanteiShinichi7]

1) came across this video on my recommendations. 2) liked the fact that you refer to your audience as "Detectives", instant like 3) The Detective Conan theme song in the end caught me off guard, instant Subscribe My name should be enough to explain why it was a big deal. Keep up the great work

[@nerdSlayerstudioss]

Shinichi what are you doing here? The serum might wear off!?!?

[@CriticsConfession]

Of all the BR games I've played, this was the one that did it for me. Such a shame that the best iterations of a genre usually don't do well. This game's fall reminds me a lot of Battlerite. Infinitely better than the other MOBA games but got no applause.

[@jeolban3287]

This was so sad because it had so much potential. It was actually so fun. Wish it got more support.

[@McMarc_1993]

I played this for hours on hours when it came out. it was so fun leveling up all the classes while stomping/getting stomped. Tempest was my fav

[@Keijikrall]

I'm actually happy to see this. I played this game, took a month break, came back to 400 playerbase count. I am EXCITED to learn.

[@yomejjuan]

I think that spell break did have the qualities in place to be a successful title, however the market for this kind of games is niche, BRs are typically in the Shooter market, and Spellbreak was not a shooter, if anything it was closer to an MMO in terms of combat. Like most launches people downloaded, tried it, then bailed. The people who stuck around weren’t enough, so the post launch issues it had were big enough to detract the few people giving it a chance. It’s sad, it was a fun game.

[@Isaac-ym8kq]

how was it more like an mmo than a shooter? it was clearly a shooter

[@yomejjuan]

@@Isaac-ym8kq not to shooter fans

[@moxbby4585]

I won't ever forget my time being a geomancer in spellbreak. I'm sad to see it go but it was inevitable

[@Lorkynn]

I remember playing Spellbreak in beta, and with the Chapter 1 Launch, and it always just felt like it was missing something. It was an amazing game, but damn that skill-ceiling was high.

[@BladeBloodreaver]

I played the game shortly on launch and thought it was fun, but didn't capture me. In your analysis, I think I agree with the idea that this game might have been better served as a Arena Shooter. If they took the interesting parts of their maps (especially the large buildings and landscapes with lots of verticallity) and focused on team-based gameplay, this game may have found it niche. Its a shame they are closing the game because they went to work on a different project. I hope for the fans out there they sell the rights/game to another studio so it can keep going.

[@n1ght7ngale]

game was so fun, it really had potential. Could you do a video on splitgate now that feature development for the game has ended?

[@MrGyrations]

You should do a video of Worlds adrift. I never really understood why it died. It had so much potential and I had so much fun before I stopped playing due to work.

[@jonathanorozco3244]

I played this game day one of launch and loved the aesthetic and magic mixing. The movement was incredibly fun too. I didn’t like Battle Royales but Spellbreak just had a different feel to it. It definitely helped get through some Covid lockdown days. It was so unique in design but was too willing to follow the industry standards in application of a Battle Royale. I think this would’ve been a completely different outcome if it had tried to lean into the magical side of things and implement PvE moments like a rock golem or goblins or stuff which was passive on it’s own but you could aggro if you chose for getting gauntlets and items. Nothing too difficult to fight, a single shot for “common” enemies up to maybe five hits for “legendary” enemies, but especially allowing casual players to actually attack with a gauntlet and see how cool it feels to land a shot before getting demolished by the professionals and streamers. Also having the ability to pre-customize your loadout and drop into a respawning deathmatch should’ve been a launch feature because having a preferred gauntlet combo was very fun but hunting down your preffered secondary gauntlet and rune for 10 minutes only to get one shot by someone else as soon as you feel finally prepared to fight the way you found fun turned some people off. Another thing that hurt the game overall was that it had too many BR modes at launch which strained a quickly dwindling player base. There was a solo queue, duo queue, and trio queue which meant that lobbies which already needed like 64 players to begin were also at the mercy of how many people were attempting to play that quantity of support (solo, duo, or trio). If they could’ve done a forced duo OR trio BR mode with a party of friends or paired with a random (but focus or duo OR trio, not both to focus all players into a single BR queue) that also had PvE elements to give the crew something to do in down time while exploring the map and their abilities while having a second customized loadout deathmatch mode at launch would’ve been amazing. I’ll miss it for what it was though.

[@shoeshank112]

I definitely agree that if it was not a BR it might have done better. The combat and spells were both so interesting and fun.

[@Scarecr0wn]

I liked everything about this game.. except playing it. Art style, vision, different approach to BR, it all spoke to me. But then I played couple of rounds and I just didn´t feel it. Felt sorry for community tho as this game was slowly dyin for some time, the comunity was even trying to somehow communicate with devs but they did not really listen, before it got hammered by ActiBlizz purchase.

[@Jamal-wk6fy]

I loved this game but man they took way to long to add content when the game was hot and to implement changes people wanted

[@VernulaUtUmbra]

For me, what I had heard from the developers was that you could choose what you went into every match with. While I know now they meant classes with passives, I thought that they meant what gauntlets you had at the beginning. This is kind of the decision that made me not want to play it. Hunt Showdown is so far the only BR I've played that allows you to pick a loadout for the match and that's one of the reasons I love it so much. As for actually trying to loot with Spellbreak, the tiers of powers were just not balanced in the slightest; Flight was so far and away above any other movement option that you'd be better off just leaving the match if you didn't get it, and if you didn't get an Ice gauntlet you were dead to anyone who did.

[@CyberneticArgumentCreator]

I subscribe to this channel like an octogenarian flipping through the obituaries in the morning paper. "Aww, Spellbreak passed? That's too bad. I liked that guy. Didn't know him well, but he seemed nice."

[@drewcipher896]

I thought the gameplay was really cool, but battle royale is such a niche gamemode. Not everyone wants that, and those that do are already well served.

[@6ber721]

Wait this game died??? that's sad it had such a good concept at least when i played it at launch but the magic and fusion of element was so fun that's sad

[@AstralPandaBoi]

To quote one top comment here "one thing i would say to developers is..." Do not make a SP game first, or battleroyale or even MP but a game that fits your gameplay. If the core gameplay is meant to be cool, responsive, high paced twitch shooter, then make the rest of the game support that. Find the fun and reinforce it. If the BR aspect of the game makes the game worse and it feels better in the grand scale magic fights, then make the game be about that. Have it be TDM or FFA in a open arena (notice ARENA not a huge map) and let the chaos ensue. Also games do not need to be competitive. They can be casual and fun, just look at TF2. Also to anyone who is wondering. SP games require a shit tonne of resources and time. Especially if it has a story and non procedual generating levels and content. A fun MP game with working core mechanics and match making can be farted out in a year by a decent team.

[@alliu6562]

Honestly, I always felt like spellbreak would’ve benefitted from being an objective-based team shooter type game, or some kind of capture the flag game, or something like that. It was actually really fun to play, but the BR genre doesn’t allow players enough playtime to actually enjoy the game. It was actually genuinely a really fun game, but I would’ve had a lot more fun if the skill differential between myself (a beginner) and the alpha testers (advanced) didn’t hurt so bad. The story was also really interesting, and I really enjoyed the movement and reaction/elemental magic gameplay.

[@vaguedensity493]

I was an active community member mod during the pre-alpha to alpha phase. The game seemed to have attracted less casual people which led parts of the game to lean for more fast paced gameplay. Your description of the Talents system *was* how it was during pre-alpha, having some element of roguelike and rng, but it eventually became streamlined and cut the rng. The name of the game became verticality and dash/shadowstep/flight. Some gimmicky items/equipment were cut. Hell even some of the mods were competitive towards me on how much uptime we brought to the Discord server. Maybe BR really was a bad way for them to go, and arena style combat would have been better 🤷‍♂ RIP spellbreak.

[@taylorlovett2938]

I always love nerdSlayers showing the actual situation of a game, and the diluted fanbase checking their wallets

[@mpratt69]

Love the case closed music at the end ❤️

[@c.m.a.444]

I absolutely loved this game, had so much fun it. My mate who hates battle royales tried it out and, initially stated he hated it. But I found him playing it solo once (due to small player base I killed him whilst he was set to offline or something I think, can’t quite remember). He admitted then he actually really enjoyed the game and did play it solo regularly. Goodbye my favourite battle Royale.

[@dannykay4649]

I’ll never understand why they didn’t make a single player RPG game off of these mechanics. They were so good.

[@erichdegurechaff9515]

Because they was just running around money like every other battle royale

[@storytellerrex3635]

Great video I was actually a early tester of spellbreak before it went to epic. I enjoyed the game a lot but left after the news that they were going to epic games

[@toasty7685]

same, i didnt mind them moving to epic but the game had some flaws

[@williamrothan764]

I loved Spellbreak when it came out, definitely my favorite battle royale, but it really had a hard time getting off the ground. I was heartbroken when I went back to the game one day and saw that the servers were shutting down fully in early January. Player counts were already basically dead and the queue times were awful, and it was a sad fate for such an original take on the genre. Strangely enough, Spellbreak was almost marketed as like an RPG, and I would've played the heck out of that!