Death of a Game: Gundam Evolution
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 ก.ย. 2023
- gunplah, sorry for playing with guns
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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.
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Sources:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gundam_...
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www.metacritic.com/game/gunda...
noisypixel.net/gundam-evoluti...
www.ign.com/articles/bandai-n...
www.eurogamer.net/gundam-evol...
www.vg247.com/gundam-evolutio...
bleedingcool.com/games/video-...
www.forbes.com/sites/olliebar...
www.vice.com/en/article/5d35x...
www.gamespot.com/articles/gun...
www.dexerto.com/overwatch/pla...
noisypixel.net/gundam-evoluti...
store.steampowered.com/app/18...
steamcharts.com/app/1816670#a...
www.siliconera.com/bandai-nam...
www.forbes.com/sites/games/20... - เกม
The trick to being a Gundam fan is to buy Armored Core games
Its more like the same but it has different feel than AC games. If Gundam Evo plays with Coop, AC plays on Solo but you can test all avaiable parts from beginning unlike Coop need to grind events and limited parts entire time.
AC6 in my opinion is average because they strayed from what AC used to be, they simplified the difficulty to the point where newcomers can learn quicker but in exchange the feel of risk vs reward completely gone. You dont need to fear about low HP and Ammo during battle, you can use repair kit and Ammo get resupplied during checkpoint.
@@hartonosutrisno5452 IMO the difficulty spikes are when u fight the bosses, honestly the game is much harder compared to the other AC titles. But the game is forgiving for PvE because they are pushing players to strive for a few things. It pushes players to complete all 3 endings to maximize ur OS tuning, to get most of ur weapons, complete all battle logs and get S rank for all missions. But the main content and end game for AC6 is actually the PvP.
And Super Robot War games.
@@hartonosutrisno5452Nexus, 4, and 5 were AC games that brought notable changes to AC, so it shouldn't be surprising to see 6 do the same.
At the very least, AC6 re established AC as a series. As an old fan of AC, I like 6 greatly, and its high up on my list of favorite AC games (but not my favorite).
*_Laughs in Zowort_*
I think one thing you missed was that while the open beta was worldwide the release has heavily region locked
For no good reason no less, you could play it from any region so long as you logged in the first time with a VPN.
This isn't me excusing it, just pointing out how ridiculous it is.
Why so many Japanese developers use that region-lock system in their games?
Very heavily region locked. Im from finland and we were locked out but our next door neighbors sweden got in. Made no sense and it definetly hurt the games launch.
I just wanted to jump in for some casual fun on launch but getting region locked got me so deflated i just couldn't care less about the game afterward, didn't even feel anything when i heard the game is closing
When I found my region pretty much all of Africa, was locked out, I still help hope that maybe it'd become truly global a couple months later, but then I saw the announcement that they had no such plans I felt defeated. Then the shutdown announcement came and got feeling of petty triumph
It always amazes me despite Gundam being as big as it is how it consistently borderline intentionally shits the bed anytime the thought of making a game comes up.
Bandai doesn't seem to get that it has a following outside of Japan, China and SEA
I think it's because the best gundam game is held in the arcade in Japan, and even when the game is released on playstation only also with no promotion ite doomed to fell
@@sofiaciel7599bandai, like a lot of "children entertainment" sort of companies like hasbro, etc.., are run by boomers on their deathbeds.
Except for the SD Gundam games those I feel are really good
@@sofiaciel7599 I agree it took them almost 10 years to get a proper gunpla distributor in Germany. They just decided that the largest economy in the EU just wasn't worth the effort until a year ago.
This is one I'm truly sad about. It was a good game at heart, but poorly mismanaged. Hopefully we see it again in the future
I think the same way. I don't like Overwatch or their community, but I DO like Gundam, and me and the boys were grinding this game hard all summer only to hear it's getting shut down anyway
I'm surprised you didn't mention one of the biggest reasons for this game's failure: launching the game only in specific regions at first. It felt like a slap in the face to know that the game was out and the entirety of South America and other regions couldn't play. This completely killed any hype for these regions and when the game was actually made available here, I simply didn't care about it anymore.
Yup I saw the game was out went on Steam said I am not eligible, I never bothered again.
definitely, I remember being hyped for this game then realizing i couldn't play it in my country and forgetting about it.
I agree tbh, thanks for the feedback. It was reported too, I just didn't focus.
Oh that one pissed me off. I had to change my Steam to US locale to even download it.
@Nerdslayergaming I think the real biggest factor was not allowing free to plays earn more than 1 suit per season. Free to play games need an audience for the whales to interact with. That with the massive network issues and casual play not letting players drop in and out of matches killed the initial player base.
"Evolving new ways to make a scummy, poorly balanced live service game with faked active development" - Gundam Evolution
That's honestly just Bandai in general.
Hey sounds like overwatch
@gp-1542
Fitting because the game is a watered down Overwatch clone with Gundam skins lol
@@YocasFilmz yet they're thriving w/ ER and Tekken8
@@Gigi-zr6hpWasn't them who made ER but ok.
I worked on this game. Though I was just a random environment asset artist, and it wasn't for the entire development cycle. I had zero control over how it turned out and can answer no questions about it.
After I found out about the EoS and being a fan of this channel, in a weird morbid way I was looking forward to this. Glad to see it happen, I was almost thinking that this game made such a tiny splash that it fell beneath notice of this channel.
Of course it's better that y'know, it didn't die to begin with but well. What to do.
As far as my personal opinion on the game, I feel like it just lacked any 'charm' to begin with. None of the mobile suit's origins and story/setting were explored whatsoever. Half the mobile suits had generic abilities like random grenades, turrets or whatever... which makes me wonder why they were picked as playable mobile suits to begin with. The levels were all generic sci-fi places instead of iconic Gundam settings. The starting lineup was just.... what? While I'm a fairly hardcore Gundam fan and can appreciate more obscure MSVs and grunt mobile suits.... just who exactly was asking for something like the Asshimar or Methuss? Extremely srange that the SEED representative was the bloody DOM Trooper... and later the goddamn Hyperion. I have to wonder if some of the starting Mobile Suits were only picked because they managed to salvage/port models from other projects.
With G-Witch airing alongside it, I found it strange they couldn't capitalize on that and release the Aerial or something. Meanwhile other Gundam games like Vs and SD Gundam Battle Alliance did get the Aerial! Like c'mon guys. What's going on?
Maybe the idea of a Gundam Vs FPS had potential, but I think it needed some major shakeup in its DNA to really make it work. Part of me also thinks the Gundam IP itself might be a burden to game design. Probably lots of red tape regarding representation of the brand(not that they did a particularly good job here). Playable unit gameplay design is restricted to the design of the Mobile Suit itself. But I can't help that if they used the Build/Breaker IP instead and just had customized versions of various familiar Mobile Suits and had more flexibility to make interesting abilities/skills and whatnot.... maybe it could've turned out better. And also paired each mobile suit with a character/pilot.
But well, I get the feeling it'll be a while before Bamco revisits the concept if ever.
I'm a pretty dedicated Gundam fan and I was baffled by the MS choices from the start.
First off, I was surprised to see GM, Zaku II, and Guntank as playable units. When the game was announced I half assumed they were some form of "map fodder" characters ala minions or creeps in LoL or Dota2 respectively. I like the grunt MS so it ultimately was a win for me... but most people like the heavy hitters like Freedom, Wing Zero, and like you mentioned Aerial.
It got worse at season 3. I knew what Hyperion Gundam was from and I was just scratching my head as to why it was chosen to be released, hell even created in the first place. Yeah sure Astray is cool, but why not get... oh, I dunno... the red or blue frame? The choices kind of got back on track with Heavy Arms custom and Dynames, two fairly popular picks. But sure enough, right after that they gave us the Susanoo. While cool, I'm pretty sure no one was really clamouring for. What's really sad is to see Zeta Gundam and Kampfer get crapped out at the last minute just as "here's what could have been," kind of gesture. I think if whoever was in charge of the roster had a finger on the pulse of what MS were popular, they could have maybe kept some more fans around.
I just don't like the gameplay feel in ny opinion, why not the game be like battle operation or maybe titan fall mech gameplay.
Totally this, as someone who follow several series, the lineup just very questionable.
It feels like they design this game abilities first, then just search Mobile suit that suits the skills. It's why there are less iconic stuff like Wing, Freedom, Ashtray, G Gundam, etc. Because they have no idea how to implement the skill without being more generic/random than it already is.
@@cardfightersclash Hey, Guntank gave us the WOOOOOOOOO. That's reason enough for me.
i didnt mind the methuss or asshimar since i enjoyed zeta but the abilities thing and the lack of more mainstream ms is really still a questionable decision from bamco
Gundam Evolution actually got me into watching gundam and the plastic addiction I have now with Gunpla. Ive built 4 kits now and am currently decaling one. Its kinda sad to see it die because it was my first foray into gundam.
In the same boat, started just wanting suits in Evolution but now I just have a problem
Play GBO2, the vast catalogue of suits - with details of where they are from etc are a mech fans dream.
@@LeeONardo Either that or Gundam Breaker 3. Just don't look into New Gundam Breaker, that one was a *HUGE* step backwards.
This series is like I'm reading a newspaper, and I see someone I know in the obituary.
this is actually a game wich makes me mad it was in that time where overwatch 2 got hate and even big youtuber like penguinz said how much they love this game and holy moly did they effed up big time and instead of changing the things we were critising they were simply ignoring us and now they do a suprised pikachu face of why that game is gonna die this game had SO MUCH potential
Lots of people talked shit about OW2, then just kept playing it.
@@chstensimo it's more the TH-camrs who can't branch out due to OW2 being their main niche. People left, maybe not like battlefield, but they left enough for it to be felt and be in a comatose state.
@@TheeOK1A million and a half daily players a month ago hardly seems like comatose to me.
Yeah I had a ton of fun playing asshimar and queuing with my friend who was a unicorn gundam main.Sad to see it go
Bandai botched this badly and Overwatch 2 retained simps that did nothing but complain about it...then still play it.
I was really upset that after the announcement, they come out next month to release the Zeta Gundam. And that’s one of my favorites. What a kick in the balls.
Seriously, it's SO FUN and yet only a few will get to play with it since there's so little time and players left.
Absolutely should've been a day one suit
its was so wild
like game is ending drop one of the most iconic gundams as the last thing
Ikr and nobody is online now
@@SPARTANLuis067 More surprised Turn A was a day 1 suit. I don't complain and my gf who never watched the series love the butterfly Ability X)
Huh, neat. My team actually showed up in a few clips in this. Unsurprising given we had some particularly crazy matches.
One thing to point out that didn't help the game at all. It deliberately encouraged you not to play. Capital was impossible to gain barring season passes which were grindy to beat. Yeah you could get them done, but you often had to play suits you didn't like or want to play to get it which further sucked the fun out of the game AND broke team compositions as everyone was trying to get their missions done. So not only did you have those issues, when they started giving people who weren't playing the game the same capital rewards as people who worked their asses off to get the capital, population utterly tanked. There was no reason to log in when they give out entire suits worth of capital for you just not playing the game. Which in turn, meant they kept giving you rewards for not logging in and playing the game which in turn encouraged you to further not play.
It's so wild, especially post Armored Core 6's release that Gundam STILL struggles here. We clearly love really cool mech games involving creation of our own mech and getting to do really cool stuff in them. They could literally have just done an AC reskin with Gundam (or do what Dynasty Warriors did with the Mobile Suit Gundam name) and it would do so well here I think. Hell I remember seeing people trying to make Gundams in AC games lmao
edit: I know there are Gundam fromsoft games. It's literally "we have Armored Core at home" lmao. So please for the love of whatever higher being you believe in stop bringing it up
The crazy part is that Fromsoft did a Gundam game for Unicorn. I'm not sure how well it did, but I think a modern Fromsoft Gundam game would absolutely slap.
Funnily enough there is a Gundam game series like that. It's called Gundam Breaker and when they did a western title for the series (New Gundam Breaker), they messed it up.
@@Rukurance But man did Gundam Breaker 2 and 3 slap hard. If they ported that to PC, I'd get it in a heartbeat.
Remember watching TH-cam videos of epic intro cinematic from Another Century's Episode (1, 2, 3, R). Fromsoft sure cram as much mechs from many different animes as possible. They somehow got Nine Ball Seraph from early Armored Core to fit into the plot of the game.
@@Rukurance It's ludicrous to say because it feels like comic book writing, but it feels like anything involving "the west" literally just depowers Bamco. They lose all sense and just job with everything they release.
It was a damn adventure while it lasted. RIP Gunevo.
It sure was a journey wasn’t it.
@@basicloganger3197 No, Journey to Jaburo was a different game.
cheers i'll drink to that bro
RIP GunEvo.. we'll miss the Exia clips.
I mean hey, there's always Titanfall.
I know nothing about Gundam, but I played with a bunch of friends who are huge fans. I think their biggest gripe (besides the garbage monetization) was that Bamco just threw a ton of random Mobile Suits into the roster, without really focusing on the most popular ones from the beginning. As well, the setting of the entire game is so nondescript that it just feels like cardboard. But it was a fun romp for a while. It reminded me of the GITS Online shooter that failed to even get out of it's open beta - a bit uninspired but genuinely pretty fun for what it is.
Eh, that's debatable as Barbatos and Unicorn are definitely well known. But I do think that the gundams from the wing and seed should've been added, but having iron blood or 00 units was a good choice.
I mean, Unicorn had a life-size model in Japan its definitely one of the most recognized.
GE was a game I really enjoyed, and I was so disheartened when it didn't take off. I could not for the life of me convince anyone to play it when it first came out, and not being able to get a ranked match left me with little to chase on my own. The dash system was so nice in that I felt like a speedy unit while still retaining the feeling of weight that you need in giant robots. I also think the "problem" people had with no role actually worked really nice. There weren't designated tanks or healers. There were mobile suits capable of doing those things to an extent, but they weren't designed to shoulder that role as thoroughly as their overwatch counterparts. Sure, Sazabi had a big health pool and a massive shield, but you weren't going to be able to stand in front of their full team for any amount of time really. I liked that feeling that each player was able to work independently towards the goal together. You still benefited from coordinating attacks and advancing together, but you didn't revolve around protecting healers or hiding behind tanks. I sometimes wonder if, had GE released a year later, would people have been tired enough of OW2 to allow it to find its footing? Maybe not--the other problems, especially monetization, still would have been really rough, but it really did feel like GE just didn't quite get off the ground by a small margin. Hopefully we do see a gundam game with more success down the line, but my hope for mecha seems to never pay off.
My thoughts exactly
The story of terrible Gundam games is like 20+ years old at this point; thank you for bringing attention to this critical issue!
If they made a separate story just for the game itself and made it in the style of Battletech or XCOM, I think that could do well. Or take the cursed route and make another battle Royale hero shooter
@@BigCheddar248 Hell, Robotech: Battlecry was a freaking baller of a game. There are wars where the MCs aren't at any battle, make a new story around that.
Gundam had a fighter series on the before the PS3 era which was baller, played like Street Fighter. The Dynasty Warrior spin-off was actually pretty good, I played it on my friends PS3 back in the day. Gundam has been really hit or miss though, I can agree on that.
Gundam: Anime's Warhammer of bad and middling game adaptions.
@@WhatWillYouFind Gundam Battle Assault 2 was awesome (the PS2 era fighter). Battle Assault 3 was bad though.
And I want another Dynasty Warriors Gundam. Those games were AMAZING.
Thanks for the kind words about Gundam Extreme Versus. I personally think there's a higher percentage of good Gundam games than many others do, but all of them are niche and scattered across genres. There's no one Gundam gaming community large enough to rally around, and Bamco is infamously allergic to giving licensed games much time and money.
Would be very nice if BamCo just resurrected Gundam Battle Operation Next than make Gundam Evolution...
@ryukaze20 gundam battle operations 2 is out on steam, but that game has some really bad disconnect policy and it is a gotcha game.
@@zergie4 I know about battle operation 2 being in Steam, I stay away from it since I still play on my Playstation.
Battle Operation Next is what you get if you make Gundam Extreme VS, but its a 6v6 "brawl" with the same elements as GBO2
The game being region locked at the start, characters being locked behind a paywall with the only to unlock them being to pay about $20 or another currency called capital which was only available through limited time events, leveling the battle the pass, and the starter challenges which was time time gated so it too a while to unlock a character but on top of them no new player would put the time in to do so. The 2 times people would were the events since you just needed to login. The starter challenges were on a daily timer that only updated when you finished all the challenges for that day, they were hard but it took about a week and 1 problem that slowed because worst was the requirement to do ranked for one of the last challenges because no one plays ranked anymore. Another problem people didn’t realize is that almost all the skins in Gundam evolution were terrible recolors and what insult to injury was when gundam battle operations 2 released you can unlock the option to freely change the colors for your suits for free. The last biggest problem was the terrible server stability at launch, it was region locked and for the people that could play you would disconnect mid game and get a penalty, they later fixed it but it took a week to do so. There were plenty of other smaller problems like the chat censorship blocking random works and some specific letters that made no sense like “ss” or “and”. Player toxicity could the developers to remove public chat because too many players trashed talked, in combination of censorship and toxicity there were some racist people that had the n word or other stuff. They by passed the censorship by put the words in all capitals and replacing the captions “i” with a lower case “L”. Terrible events that made it nearly impossible to earn all the rewards and some poor balance at the start was a culmination of problems that left a real bad first impression. For me I like it because it like the early days of overwatch, there was a class system but it was still vague and you weren’t locked to only playing between 1 of the 3 classes. Overwatch 2 has a classic mode but it’s horrible and not the same as it used to be anyway, it’s 5v5 and to balance tanks they have there hp cut in half and the original overwatch made it a limit of 2 per character you the gimmick of a full team being 1 character were in the original quick play mode. Gundam evolution is much better in that way but both overall both games suck sadly.
I didn't see anyone mention this, but one of the worst things was that some maps were horribly unbalanced. A few of the capture point maps could be cheesed and snuck onto with flying units like Asshimar and Methuss. Which was very hard to deal with in pubs.
If one team can do it, so cam the other. I think ots healthy to have more than one route so the game doesnt devolve into unpassable choke points. Even exia can jump past walls only fliers could. Then sazabi had the super jump too. Barbatos a fair bit.
And some maps makes otherwise mid-tier pick into a God-tier one.
GM Sniper on Harbor City anyone? Even a decent at best GM Sniper can lockdown in Defense so hard, the pushing team can't even take the first capture point.
Skill issue. That's what Asshimar and methuss can do so the defending team need to have a strategy to deal with them
@@youtubedeletedmyaccountlma2263 those are mobile but not necessarily fast. A suit like barbatos and exia can zoom across with moves that double as dodges. Methus and asshimar just kinda go a consistent speed for a while.
Honestly legit, a really fun game. But it had problems they never fixed.
The server shutdown certainly feels too early... but yeah, it clearly wasn't making enough money (you can blame overpriced 'micro'transactions for sure) so they shut it down... what a shame.
I have played plenty of Overwatch and GunEvo to say that the latter's main problem was mainly everything around the gameplay.
The cosmetics left a lot to be desired, the actually good ones ( modified versions of the mobile suits from the franchise's lore ) were gated behind a currency rewarded for duplicates, but the amount was so ludicrous you had to shell out hundreds of dollars just to get one, and they were also time gated. Furthermore, the fact that characters were locked in a competitive shooter in which changing character is encouraged left many ( myself included ) frustrated. And it's not like you could grind out games in order to obtain all the characters, the currency needed to unlock them was also time gated, you could only get one suit per season, so you were effectively negated the ability to unlock everything without paying ( it was addressed too little too lae, both with daily capital rewards and events ). All in all, you had very little incentive to play, the battlepass payed for itself which was good ( unless you used the premium currency you gained from it to buy another character ). The servers also suffered issues long after the game's launch, so technical aspects also contributed to it.
You could argue that the game balance contributed to the game's demise, but I disagree, it wasn't so blatantly terrible to inflict that much damage.
I feel like this game should be one of the textbook cases of a game that died due to corporate greed, characters locked behind a time-gated grind, terrible, overpriced cosmetics, drip-fed currency, numerous updates consisting in shop updates.
The gameplay was good, I have played more than 300 hours of Overwatch but I'd say that gunevo's is better, if only it had been smoothed out.
I just hope it will come back around in a more complete version further down the line, I had a lot of fun with it, Bandai has stated ( iirc ) that they were doing another attempt at an esports game, it could be this one's successor, it could also not be.
God I remember back at launch when you couldn't even PRACTICE with the new suits for months lmao
I would also add server merge and release Burried City. And the funny fact that server merge didn't fix the problem of MM because most of NA still played on Asia/JP servers.
Also most of people dropped gunevo after GBO2 released because of suit "variety".
@@Lemintoon Gunevo was a twitch shooter with a focus on clicking heads, GBO2 okays more like a tank sim than a shooter - positioning and teamwork are more important than pure shooting
A few big things that killed the game for me personally was 1. The server would kick you out and hit you with a time out even though your connection is top notch. And even though they had a rejoin feature it never worked. Because of this I was cared to play ranked because I didn't want to risk losing my team a game because of something random and out of my control. 2. Queue times were already long and once people started realizing queue times were quicker in other regions, they switched to playing those regions which left NA out to dry. There was no way id play with a worse ping with how unstable it was even in my own region. It was all really unfortunate because I genuinely enjoyed the gameplay more than OW, a game I spent more than 1000 hours playing
When you did get a match it wasn't uncommon to fight a team of newtypes with a whopping two victories under your belt. Not one GM like OW does but a whole ass team of them.
There was a lot more wrong with the game than what was mentioned, my two cents: framerate was hard-capped at 120 (despite being released for PC only), and was coded to be tied to the tick-rate of the game. Meaning that if you edit the config file to unlock the framerate, the game would literally slow down for you if it wasn't able to generate enough frames. A lot of small things like this add up to feeling like it didn't have much to offer non-Gundam fans, although it wasn't even that well recieved by Gundam fans either. It couldve lasted longer if the monetization weren't so bad, but it was an inevitable death.
I'm thankful for the fun i had with this game, because the first reveals inspired me to get into Gundam, but seeing this on your channel kind of hurts. I'm sure the video will be good. I'm giddy with anticipation.
Rip welcome to the fandom! And remember Zeon literally did nothing wrong besides lose
@@0Synergy sieg zeon!!!
You're not exaggerating about how scary Barbatos was to new players; it's straight-up the reason I left. Seeing that thing launch itself across the map and then again vertically just to instantly destroy me gave me the sense that the game was just inherently unfair. Especially since nobody else gets any melee attacks (despite beam sabers being one of the most common MS weapons ever), just so that Barbie gets to be the extra-special melee character.
One of the main recurring problems with balance in Gundam games is that they always overtune the flagship Gundams like Barbatos and Exia while leaving the non-gundams mid tier. They gotta make sure the Gokus of the franchise get special treatment.
@@jirehjirehjirehjireh It's more like Melee focused Units are overtuned. Like people complaining about Exia's mobility, People complaining about barbatos's lethality and people complaining about Dozle's Zaku II and that became a effing Meme lol
And there is pay to win Andy's with his exia, no joke I'm fine with barbie but if I see one more time exia just zooming around the map I will lose it.
After a few games getting pummeled by Barbatoes, I had to change my tactics and basically turned into a sniper main.
Barb is straight up kind of bad now, but he was able to abuse the lack of familiarity people had with the dash system so hard he legit contributed to killing the game.
There's no excuse for launch exia lmao that shit was absurd
What killed it for me was all of the disconnects or players who quit at the first sign of trouble. EVERY. SINGLE. MATCH. My final few weeks with the game were ones of futility. And I couldn’t take the monetization any more, the Home Screen always begging me to spend money on getting a little trinket I would likely never use.
And was anyone else really disappointed by how emotive voice lines were virtually nonexistent? Getting like three voice lines throughout my entire GE career really says something about the state of the monetization of the game. 😢
I LOVED the gundam side story game on the dreamcast. Was awesome!
the tragic part is the thing they got wrong was literally everything EXCEPT the gameplay. The gameplay itself felt GREAT. It was very fast, fluid, had mechs for all skill levels. Its also one of the few games that I thought automatic fast fire weapons felt GOOD to use like asshimer. It felt really nice to play and hot take but I think it mechaincally was more solid than most other fast paced hero shooters like paladins and even overwatch. They just ruined it by LITERALLY everything else. Pay to win, extremely hard to get ANYTHING if you're f2p, hard to get anything if you DID pay, awful cosmetics and a lot of junk, very lootbox focused, battle pass sucked and barely rewarded you at all, the mechs behind paywalls were VERY expensive, the marketing was very misguided (No witch of mercury mech tie in? That is LITERALLY one of the most popular gundam shows and was running at the same time as this game. AND WHERES WING EVERYONE KEPT BEGGING FOR IT. Trying to appeal mainly to non-gundam fans while not doing that well and also alienating gundam fans?), the branding sucked (seriously why isnt it a build fighter game, the game is practically like gunpla smacking into each other even if it didnt want to be. The mechs chose oftent weren't the most interesting too), The rez mechanic and some really bad balance from various mechs and how high damage numbers could be (probably to make up for the res allowing for a second lease on life), the weird dead in the water focus on esports, the optimization (if your computer didnt run the best your sound often devolved into static for instance), and so on. The game also only released in certain regions at a time which KILLED its momentum by the time it made it to other places.
Also the match making was also very bad. It wanted to be an esport SO BAD you'd be penalized for leaving a CASUAL match even if it were a stomp. Even overwatch does this better, since it lets you leave and just penalizes you by not giving battle pass points and putting you into in action games more often. Meanwhile this game would either just cancel match you may have waited early on for if someon leaves early, or doesnt add any new players in and PUNISHES YOU if you leave too by not letting you requeue til the match ends. IN CASUAL. I really think that's a non insignificant factor on why the game died too, the need to be an esport killed casual hard core. Even custom matches are MUCH harder and less prioritized than any other hero shooter Ive found. Even paladins and overwatch have much more accesable custom matches. Add to that the servers often werent stable so people often were kicked and punished under no fault of their own, an issue that wouldnt have existed had they did not punished people in the first place and actually made an ACTUAL casual mode.
They made a really fun game, tied like 10 iron balls to its heels, and threw it off a bridge thinking it'd swim back to shore.
Also the story bit mentioned and how very not gundam like makes me ask one thing. "Why isnt this a GUNPLA game". Like why isnt this like a build fighters game, it already feels like it and it'd be much better themeing for how it plays.
Bandai has a draconian policy on people that drops. Gundam Battle Operations 2 has the same exact problem. No reconnect ability, an excessively harsh drop penalty where even if it is not your fault, you are heavily penalized up to not able to play the game for several days. I get that early on in its life there was alot of dcing due to people wanting to save their elo, but when you account for the fact their own net codes are horrid on pc and relies on a host connections, its unacceptable.
Yeah I'm gonna agree here. When I first picked this game up, I had such a blast -- the mechanics felt so good, and it was honestly an incredible experience. The gameplay was rock solid, and they just did everything they could to ruin the game.
Sad to see it go. This game could've been a hit.
Yup. The gameplay was godlike.
You said it buddy. You definitely experienced THE GAME lol.
@@oscarisnyrd13 Yep, though unfortunately I had to also experience the part that WASNT the game itself too in the process ;v. I kid but yeah, it honestly sucks they made such a good feelign game and just like turned it into a "find a hay in the needle sack" situation with the hay being the actual gameplay.
Region locking the game was one of the biggest factors imo. Pretty sure the beta was open to any region and it was actually successful with loads of players and very quick when finding matches but as to why they suddenly blocked it on certain regions when they officially released the game is a mystery and killed a lot of the hype for the game which probably lost quite a significant amount of "could be" players.
Gundam evolution should've been like Gundam Battle Operation 2 in terms of the weapon selection, customizing your unit in whatever colors you want in the customization with paint schemes you can make, and also add units that everyone would recognize especially here in the U.S. I had no idea where the Hyperion Gundam came from, it was a random choice by the developers but I feel in the long run whether they say it or not, the eagerness to make it a e-sport and the constant paywalls is what ultimately what killed it I believe anyway.
Great video, shame there isn't more detail on its performance. The biggest disappointment to me was there was no sense of immersion. It never felt like big mechs to me, just people running around in costume armor. The gameplay was pretty good, the network stability on other hand...
we will see more online game shutting down , layoff , notable people leaving and studio shutdowns till 2030 weekly
I think you could have dived into more why the player count fell off. It wasn't just out of nowhere. There were so many problems with the game fundamentally that were never addressed.
-Capping game availability in different regions
-No Backfill for matches
-Matches lasting too long
-Overpowered or non defined characters
-Weird revive system that needed you to kill someone twice to make them dead.
-Characters locked behind paywall and no consistent method of gaining CP to buy them.
-Season 5 and 4 having 2 characters with the same ultimate ability from the same series instead of choosing something more recent (Gundam Aerial)
-Monetization and weird gacha system for skins as well as skins being bland and not really taking advantage of the series's history.
Gundam Evolution was fun while it lasted and I had a great time with it but it felt really bland and unoriginal after a while. Like i've played the same game before but this one was less inspired considering the massive titan of a franchise that Gundam is. They could have taken the momentum of OW2's horrible launch to take some of the player base and integrate them into the Gundam series.
It sucks that Kampfer is the last MS to be included and I think he was a great pick given what his kit offered.
I see Gundam and think it could be a fun series to get into and that game looks hella good from an outside perspective as someone who's never gotten into it. From what I've seen if they wanted to gatcha skins they should've gatchaed paint colors for customization.
I agree with everything but the revive mechanic. I loved it. Felt like it kept me in the gameplay longer than ow.
Paywall for characters? I think I have all the characters as a FTP player. Also, have you played other games with revive mechanics? Because it’s pretty much used in a lot of the current games. Fortnite and Apex immediately come to mind, but many others as well.
He really didn't cover enough to be honest this video would have been WAY longer, I think it's mainly his own opinions rather than what was actually wrong with the game and devs.
Mainly the glitches. Lol
What i loved from GunEvo was the lack of "Balance"
being able to carry if you were good with the MS was awesome, the lack of "comp build" is something we need in every game.
playing whoever you want without a strong meta comp (Mauga flashbacks) is necessary.
I'm gonna be honest here... My favorite Gundam games have been the Dynasty Warriors Gundam series. To me they've been the best gundam content I've experienced, I tried a few of the other games that were available... but they never really got me hooked like DWG did.
Gundam has so much potential, the setting itself transcends gametypes. You could do an Armored-Core-like action arcade, you could make a Turn Based Strategy game like XCOM (Any of the two warring factions that have plagued the setting at any given time), a tournament fighting game (G-Gundam was basically Tekken with giant robots)
RPGs where you level up a pilot, have a story and just absolutely connect to the characters as you play out their life. Because Gundam isn't just about the giant robots... It's about having DRAMA in a setting that has GIANT GODDAMN ROBOTS!
Something I'd say was a big contributor to the game's death was delayed regional launches. The game's launch hype died out for many when it was not available in many parts of the world like latin america. I think it had wider regional releases once overwatch 2 had already launched and by then nobody wanted to play it when you could go play ow2
The biggest problem with this game was that even though I was piloting a giant robot, the feedback provided through sound and visual effects really didn't sell that idea.
I actually mentioned in a topic once that the game should have actually been "MS Girls" since the game feels like people wearing the suits and running around instead of being a large mech.
Yeah I know making it girl centric would have turned a lot of normies off BUT it would have been interesting to give them their first(?) ever game.
Even though it was undercooked in all other aspects, Gundam Evolution managed to provide some of the best, most concise multiplayer FPS gameplay that the industry has seen in the past 7-8 years. The fluidity, dynamics, and general feel is almost comparable to Quake 3. Sad to see it go.
I'm going to miss this game, I was hoping that it would at least last another two years.
As soon as I saw that bandai was making this game, I knew it would end up like this, and I was proven right the second the game came out and I got to touch it. Everything single anime-licensed game Bandai touches turns to ash. I genuinely don't know why they keep being allowed to hold all those IPs hostage.
Dragon ball fighterz
@CumCaptain dragon ball fighterZ was developed by arc system works. Bandai Namco was just the publisher
My guy its cause bandai fucking produces the gundam models
Please PLEASE don't ever do a gundam battle operations 2. The game is doing good.
@@lelouche25Good on playstation yes, but on pc it's awful from server issues to not implementing proper mouse support (Sensitivity wise)
I liked this game alot I really did. I think there were some simple things they could've done to improve it like have maps that communicated the scale a bit better. The city maps were the most fun because they actually made it feel like you were playing a massive 6 story mech fighting other giant mech's. But so many of the maps were just these nonsensical repetitive grey bases with massive hallways and giant rooms that served no purpose which made them feel bland.
Then there's also the fact they did nothing to capitalize on The Witch from Mercury's success outside of a cosmetic pack that included a couple emblems and a avatar (which was just a still frame from the show).
And speaking of cosmetics those were also just bland and generic. Every mech just had the standard "now it's green! Now it's blue! Now it's black and gold! Ooo look random neon lines!" with nothing that felt unique or creative. It wasn't until, like, season 4 where they did something kinda cool skin wise. They gave the RX-78-2 (the OG classic gundam from the first series) a skin that made it look like the RX-78-1 Prototype Test Unit from one of the popular manga series. So many of the suits in the game had cool alt variants or color schemes in the shows/manga/Gunpla kits that they could've farmed for cosmetics without having to change the models at all. Hell, they couldn't even done stuff like battle scared versions of the base skins and that would've been an improvement
I do kinda wish the video had mentioned one thing though. That being the absolute denial from the hard core fans right up until the literal day the shutdown was announced. If you said the game was in a bad place or the 90% player drop (more than that really) on steam was a bad sign you'd get KILLED for it. People would just throw things out like "it's huge in Japan!" or "It has its own launcher so the steam numbers are meaningless anyway!", then acting like it was this baffling out of left field thing that the game was being put down like old yeller.
Ok one other thing. Balance is briefly mentioned in the video and I feel that needs to be expanded on a bit. For those who don't know when the game launched the barbatos was every but as a scary as it's implied in the vid, and there were some other suits that felt op or way too weak. It was a real issue and it was something commonly cited by people for why they dropped the game. By season 2 the balance had improved massively and aside from the occasional outlier I think they'd done a pretty good job balance wise since then. But there was just no effort to communicate that outside of people playing at the time. No marketing, no PR, no push to really get players to try the game again and see what they thought. It really felt like after the initial player drop the game was instantly written off and Bandai just had the devs trickle out the content they'd already started while letting people drop money on micro transactions for a few more months before announcing the shutdown.
And again to emphasize, I liked this game alot. I was going on twitch every week with a buddy of mine and streaming for hours after each new Witch from Mercury episode while we discussed said episode and the best memes we'd seen of it. And then off stream id just play for hours anyway. I really feel like I'd they'd done a better job at marketing or made some real effort to improve things like map anesthetics in seasons 2 and 3 the game could've been saved.
The Steam Discussion Page is an absolute mess and cesspool back then and even to this day, it is true that the game has a separate launcher in JP but even over there its not doing well. Have friends and relatives who were born and bred in Japan and die hard gundam fans, and they mentioned even for them this game is a miss as many just doesn't feel right and most Japanese rather plays GBO2 on PS or Extreme VS on Arcade which explains why both game fares well domestically for them.
@@StalkRay oh I wasn't even talking about the steam discussion page. Cause let's be honest even in good games everyone loves the steam discussion page is usually an abomination. This was on twitter and reddit.
There was one mod on the Gundam Evo sub that threatened to ban me for saying that I think it was a mistake to cater so heavily to the legacy fans (00 era) and ignore the newer fans with so many of the post launch suits. He was saying I was being alarmist and the game was healthy and fine, player counts were actually high (no source) and I was just an idiot (fair), ect ect.
I believe it was a week to the day later that the shutdown was announced.
I was 100% expecting Aeriel to show up as one of the first couple of new mobile suits. Still have no idea how they fumbled that opportunity.
@@skilledwarman Ah yes I was in the reddit page as well, the moment the EOS got announced the community literally became an absolute mess and started trash talking people who shite on the game by pointing out it's flaws. The mod will randomly ban someone if they see any comments that talks about the flaw of the game.
Same thing in Steam Discussion, the moment EOS got announced, the discussion page is unwatchable, some even flocked to GBO2 page just to shit talk the game
@@StalkRay that same mod is a regular user on the main gundam subreddit and he always seems to forget that. Which is hilarious cause he will pick fights with people and get absolutely torn to shreds since he can't just ban people.
And he was on the wrong side of basically every witch from mercury fan theory which just made it even better.
I've had this thought for awhile now, This would have been an amazing Battlefrontesque game considering the varied Gundams and abilties.
The saddest part of all this is that I doubt this game will ever get the chance to get something like the Northstar client, or a Club Penguin Rewritten. Its just going to be another game lost in the Live Service sauce, most likely to be forgotten
also as a little fact GunEvo was region blocked, meaning many countries werent allowed to play, almost all LATAM was banned from the game for in their words fear of hackers, they literally shot themself in the foot from the get go
Zaku's dash movement in this game was so much fun! Too bad the servers would drop you and you would be slapped with a leaver penalty, that STACKS!
Vwom
For me the ideal gundam game in terms of feel is Gundam battle operations 2. The feel kf the suits is just perfect
I knew it was destined to die when the very first screenshots came out and the UI was damn near a 1:1 of Overwatch. Even more so when I found out it was being developed by Bandai Namco.
RIP Gundam Evolution, you were too good for this world.
As always, a gem tainted by greed and bad decisions from its owners.
Not only that it was only new ish hero shooter it this seems every hero shooter that comes out this can't keep up with overwatch we need hero shooter that is on scale of overwatch 1 to bring new life into this genre
@@braedonsrantsmore2482 When I see what Overwatch became, I'd personally prefer something better without microtransactions or battlepass for once.
@jacktheripper7935 we need hero shooter that revolutions the hero shooter genre into new level
I love Gundam Evo and I sinker more than 250 hours into the game. I can say the lack of cross play, lock characters, and not a lot of progress cause the game to die dramatically
One of my core issues with it is the fact it doesn't feel like you play a giant mech suit at all.
The environment is not sized to it at all. Think about how massive the interiors would be to fit these suits, but they feel just like a normal corridors. There is little to nothing conveying the sizes involved.
I actually had fun playing this game. The main issue I had is the matchmaking taking forever because no one plays this game. I also agree that a story mode would help give some investment into what each gundam even is. Barely watched Gundam or played Overwatch, but there just nothing to really do while matchmakers takes forever.
I said that because clearly this wasn't marketed for true Gundam fans. So then at least educate the ones that are new
@@nerdSlayerstudiossAs a major gundam fan trying to personally get non-gundam fans to play the game, the namesake was the biggest issue to get through. I can't tell you how many people immediately dismissed this game because they "Never watched a gundam show before".
There is also a little thing, that gundam evo was not released in some countries for some reason, limiting the access of players to it. It wouldn't help it to survive, probably, but it still a thing that happened.
As someone from africa i literally couldnt play the game for a long time until i decided to download via VPN, and even then it was just too late
Im still playing the game tho since then and was enjoying it, the fast pacin of this game with the universal dash system is honestly one of the most fun mechanics in a shooter and im waiting for the Kampfer unit update
Im not ready to see it shitdown...
@@Kardz6Fucking love the dash system. Dash-centered suits like Zaku 2 ranged and Exia are really fun to play. It made this game faster paced than OW, but not by a huge amount to make it difficult to play. I’m also waiting for Kampfer to drop, even if I probably won’t use it for long and will just go back to Heavyarms.
Actually really enjoyed playing this with my regular gaming group. Felt like the balance wasn't too off and there wasn't really any bad option to play as. Hurts to see it go.
I got into GEVO a little mover a month ago and ive loved my time with it. I just wish there were more Quality of life options, the ability to chose game modes and maps, more ready access to the playable suits, etc
There's a small joke that I somehow fear is real among the hero shooter genre: Any hero shooter without payload gamemode would simply fail. Because said mode make use of the trinity tank/dps/heal the most. Can't be helped that GunEvo and similarly LawBreaker have every units basically dps even their healers (which I unfortunately personally prefer).
The problem with the "Healers that are just healers" thing is that a pure healer is a victim class, a designated target for assassin-type characters and I say this as someone who loves playing Medic in TF2. The game is literally balanced around you dying so the game can progress.
It's a rare breed of gamer who enjoys playing a victim class, so if the game depends on their presence for an optimal gameplay experience (Or any gameplay experience at all in the case of Overwatch's role lock) then relying on a slim percent of players for said experience is just not a good idea... but you can't have defenseless supports in a game with supports that can fight, the disparity in healing numbers would have to be so big that not playing the victim healer would be suboptimal and probably get you flamed. So now we've got supports that are just DPS characters with responsibilities.
Ultimately I think that if you're going to make a team based pvp game that has a pure healer character, all the characters need to be self-sufficient enough that the game is playable without said healer so that they're less of a requirement and more of a luxury that can be lived without.
I'm glad you covered this game, as someone who never watched gundam and only played this with friends & AS a better overwatch since it plays so unique and much more fast paced and less invulnerability based game that has been my entry point into the gundam series. It didn't get a fair chance.
PS: mahiroo for life o7
I think the closest we’ll get is SD Gundam Battle Alliance, but the truth is that you could make a story driven game by creating a stand alone title for each iteration of Gundam.
I have been a Gundam fan since Wing hit Toonami in the 2000s and have been in love ever since. I have shelves full of Gunpla customs and displays with my favorites. I’ve watched the entire Universal Century timeline like 7 times. And me and my best friend have a matching Gundam tattoo where he has Barbatos and I have the RX-78 and we connected over this game heavily. Seeing this game die was genuinely the first time i was really emotionally devastated by a game closing.
If this is your game play, it is legitimately upsetting how many times you've let your allies die instead of picking them up.
Truly enjoyed this title. Put in over 100 hours, built a couple of gunpla and watched a few anime. No regrets
WTF it's on Death of a Game already ?!
I remember playing it's beta and launch like only yesterday & the gameplay is actually decent.
youre right but the shareholders demanded blood in the form of ridiculous monetization
it was a game with great gameplay and mechaincs that literally did everything else horribly wrong. Monetization was horrid, the progression was snails paced even if you paid, the locked units were incredibly grindy if you didnt pay nearly 15-20 bucks each, servers were BUSTED bad, match making in casual was even stricter with leaving than a lot of comp modes and often you'd get kicked due to server issues, a lot of balance issues and a revive mechainc that imo made things much worse, 99% of the cosmetics sucked let alone all the other trinkets to buy, game in general had a kind of cheap presentation and ran really not the best, updates barely added much outside of sometimes a new mech F2Ps couldnt do anything with, some balance changes, and a new map. it was like REALLY fun but the gameplay and mechanics but it was very much a hay in the needle sack with the hay being that super fluid and good gameplay
Basically a bandai namco moment if you ask me
Anyone I talked to who was not a support main in OW ended up liking Gundam Evo's gameplay far more. The biggest issue was it was way too greedy, there was virtually no reason to play the game regularly since everything was tied up in the Battlepass.
Just imagine if they made a single player, linear RPG where you start as a teen inside a colony (they basically always seem to do so, don't they?) finding your first suit after navigating through a colony ravaged by a war suddenly inside the colony (Also, as per the standard formula)
Then destiny thrusts you into the cockpit, and you finally and suddenly via comms from one antagonist/protagonist from either side get to choose which side of the conflict to end up on. Thus giving you branching story arcs. (For replayability if nothing else)
Then before each mission start, you and your trusty Haro get to redesign your gundam and equip it in whichever way you wish, paint it as you see fit. Alter layouts etc. Also to interact with the rest of the crew. Finding out why they fight. Forming attachments that can rapidly end on the battlefield if one of them gets killed for instance. Thus making you feel involved with the NPC characters.
It could be soo good,, so really, really darn good.
Ohh, and still get to have some multiplayer features for PvP battle arena stuff or something. where your custom Gundam gets to show what it can do..
Come on Namco Bandai,, Get on it!!! I'll even help with the storyarc.. I promise.. I love Gundam and its various timelines.
They already have a Gundam jrpg it's called Gundam Saga.
I played the hell out of this during season 3, grinded a bit too! I, for free, actually had a lot of fun playing this game. I was hurt to see it go down in flames like it did.
It's problems were noted but some of the games I played were good, challenging and fun games and getting to know the units and maps was fun for what it was, despite the games problems!!!
It def had a lot of news hype and circulation behind it prior to release, but once it released and the heavy region locking meant that I couldn't play I completely forgot about it, even missing when it eventually did release in my country.
also bamco please please please release a modern iteration of EXVS on consoles/pc worldwide I dont wanna have to go to a japanese arcade just to play the current iteration of the game
It’s such a shame since I felt that this game with just a few changes could’ve been a real hit
A short yet fitting obituary.
This game is genuinely one of the best games I have ever played. Compared to OW, GunEvo is way more fun to play due to the changes they made to the gameplay. Namely, the rez mechanic, boost system, the melee-shield dynamic, and the ability to shoot AND heal/shield at the same time. These aspects culminate in fast-paced gameplay where I actually enjoy playing something other than DPS units.
But you really hit the nail on the head on the lack of integration from the anime into the MS. Grunt units are pretty good (Zaku II especially), but it’s quite a stretch that Exia doesn’t have a beam pistol despite having a GUNblade. The most egregious omission IMO is the lack of beam sabers, especially when you can see them in a lot of MVP screens. I think adding it would actually work really well since you wouldn’t need to rely on dedicated melee units as much.
You couldn’t be more correct in saying that they should’ve used a lot more their IP in this game. As a Gundam fan as well, I would’ve loved to see units from Seed, WfM, and even Build Fighters duke it out in this game. It’s sad to know that they won’t.
I have played GunEvo since launch and I’ll play it ‘till its end. I just wish it lasted longer.
My friends and I tried to get into this a couple of months before the closure was announced. It was a weekend of pure pain and being completely destroyed over and over again. I know I uninstalled it and didn't look back. Whether we were up against cheaters or premium stacked teams, it just was zero fun at all as a new player.
Always knew it was destined be this way but I've had fun and will continue to have fun until the final days. I'll always cherish the WOOOOOOs we shared.
Gundam Evolution's gameplay reminds me a lot of Hawken, which you've also covered on this channel. What a shame that it's shutting down...
I remember Hawken, I hate what happened to it.
Didn't played this game a lot, but I will forever remember how scary the Barbatos was
My personal feeling is that it will always be difficult for Bandai to make a popular Gundam game just because of the history of the franchise. Gundam is over 40 years old now and I feel that most people have already formed an opinion on it. I'm just basing this off of my own interactions with people about Gundam. As a huge fan, I see a lot of resistance to it. I think a lot of people have already written it off as just an old giant robot anime. When you couple that with a video game, I think most people would not take it seriously since it's already an established franchise, and one that doesnt have a very good history outside of Japan. The biggest games over the years have all been completely new characters and stories. OW has new and unique characters that are mostly interesting in their own rite, and they exist in a world that actually has some really cool and interesting lore. Gundam just has a lot of baggage I guess is what I'm trying to say. Nonetheless I will still dream of they day that we get a proper Gundam game that blows up in popularity. Personally I would love to see something that makes it actually feel like you're a pilot in the cockpit of this giant hulking mecha. For now AC6 is the closest to scratching that itch.
loved the video, always loved gundam games just wish theyd be more important over here in the west. Surprised you didnt mention the launch of MSG battle operation 2, I know that was a massive impact to the steam numbers. Everyone i knew that played evolution jumped ship to msgbo2 the moment it launched.
Man, that was a really great video! Thanks👍👍!
Even our hardcore Gundam game community didn't play Evolution. Our country just concluded its premier gaming event (imagine the equivalent of the EVO event) and we had a Gundam ExVS MBON tournament in it. You had it right that Extreme VS feels like a Gundam game and nobody here associates Gundam with FPS. Kinda misses the point of playing an awesome mech when you can't see the mech you're piloting.
Great video, as a small criticism, I don't think the lack of a single player story is a mark against or a reason for failure. If anything, I would argue that not having character voice lines and instead having generic profile voice-overs is more harmful. Overwatch also launched with no story and what story was given was done so in supplemental pieces or through events years down the road. The difference is that Overwatch had unique characters and their personalities played out through their gameplay and gave hints at a larger world beyond the confines of your match.
To clarify, when I said story in the context of this game, I meant things like lore and World story
Yeah, I wished we played the Pilots instead of just the MSs. Like funny enough some people were asking for a "feminine" representation... but don't realize Pale Rider is piloted by a women (Chloe Croce).
One company can make gundam slap in the west, Fromsoft. Armored Core 6 is my game of the year hands down, and the work that they did years ago on A.C.E proves to me they could easily handle mech ip's. Bandai just needs to give them the reigns on the next gundam release, and they also need to bring the VS series over to the west jfc. I recommend Gotcha Force heavily because it laid the entire foundation for VS since the lead designer who worked on Gotcha Force also was lead designer on the first VS games before leaving.
Fromsoft also did a Gundam Unicorn game for japan on the ps3
I do believe Fromsoft is the only company that could revive Gundam games. Just look at the Gundam action games Bandai Namco made recently, they play exactly the same as 20 years ago, which explains everything.
I was thinking of coming back a year back but that moment in 10:13 was what told me F-ING NO. When that video of the Hi-Nu Gundam walking up that RAMP and NOT GETTING HEADSHOT told me they were willing to lie to my face.
Problems that caused the low player numbers:
1) Almost no advertisements outside of Twitter. (Super lazy in the advertising department)
2) Playable MS roster is so few and not the MS everyone wanted.
3) GBO2 snatched majority of the PC players away. (Not surprising)
4) The old DAILY & WEEKLY missions was so tedious, it didn't appeal to casual players.(Had to play specific MS to complete mission)
5) HQ Mode made people get fed up due to the unnecessary long match times.
6) HQ Mode has a huge snowball effect, effectively demoralizing players on the losing side.
7) Matchmaking is stupid to the point you get teamed up with lower ranks despite being way waaay higher than them.
8) Not much incentive to make old and newcomers to play longer. (No capital gain & no acct level up rewards)
9) Skins of MS and weapons are so generic and lackluster. (Just add stripes or only single/two color pallete)
10) Too many region locked Countries can't play the game.
11) Few maps. (Repetition is same old maps)
12) Voice lines only in EN Dub. (No options to choose other language dubs)
13) There's no representative MS for ZZ, X, V, G and etc
Should've released MSGO (Mobile Suit Gundam Online) Worldwide instead.
Way better due to the 50 vs 50 matches.
The fact that GBO2 managed to snatch away players from G.Evo despite all the issues with the game itself baffles me, despite it being one of the worst rated games on Steam it is able to maintain more players than G.Evo even before the EoS announcement, game is just a complete joke by then
It really is a shame. The games we had recently for the Gundam Franchise in the west have had some great Gameplay, but oh god, does Bandai-Namco not no know how to keep their money grubbing hands off them.
I really really enjoyed this game, but I knew since mid season 2 it wasn't making it to the end of 2023 if they didn't make some major pushes to get players back. I wonder if the vid will bring up the fact that the game's early season happened as the most popular gundam show in decades was coming out and the games only attempt to capitalize on that was 2 overpriced PNG player cards? And before anyone says anything about WFM not actually being popular it broke all prior gundam viewership records and merch sale records, and yet this game still didn't try to add even a single mobile suit from it
I only played in Season 1. The monetization was really the nail in the coffin. The fact that it was so hard to get suits if you were F2P meant that they REALLY shot themselves in the foot when they decided that 2 of the 3 melee units and 1 of the 2 true healers were going to be paid. In the latter case, while the other support units were good, they couldn't keep a whole team moving like Methuss and Unicorn (unless they were communicating very well with a GM). I'm pretty sure all the suits added later were also paid, but I have no idea if they increased your gain of the currency that could buy them at any point, so I won't speak on them.
On top of that, the fact that there was never any ounce of control about what map or game mode you were going to (even in casual or PRIVATE MATCHES) could at times just send you to the same map that you hate 5 times in a row, even if you're just riding through in the same lobby. There was no vote and no "don't repeat same map" in the random selection. No game mode playlists. Nothing. And whoever decided there should be a map where both spawnpoints are adjacent to each other as the objectives get further away needs a good talking to. Because that map was an awful haven of snowballing and spawncampers.
I can't remember properly, but S2 either didn't even add a new map, or it only added one. That was my main reason for quitting, personally. And I HAD spent money on the game, so I could get all the suits. I could still feel the pain of the rest of my team when their main suits were already selected and they didn't have the paid suits so they just had to... Try something random.
My particular reason for stopping about a month or so in was because of how most matches felt like my team was kinda doing whatever instead actually cooperating with each other.
Gundam games are best when they are story-driven. Code Fairy (a episode-ish gundam game using Battle Operation 2's mechanics and engine) was great in my opinion and SD Gundam Battle Alliance is story driven but has to at least be familiar with most of the franchises' settings.
Bandai Namco is doing it again in the mobile Gacha via UC Engage being localized. At least they try to keep a franchise alive in this games, unlike the others who reboot/re-imagine older games to fail spectacularly.
I'm trying to think of what it was that really bothered me about the game. I had lots of fun with it for a brief time, and of course being a huge Gundam fan, I enjoyed the simple fact it was a pretty smooth feeling Gundam game. I think the problem was just making me pay for new Mobile Suits on top of having you earn basically nothing at all from playing. Like... I am happy to play a game just for fun, but when you dangle all these rewards in front of me behind real money AND especially lock new playable characters (Suits) behind paywalls or year long grinds for single suits... you really turn me off your game. I get you have to fund your Free to Play game and all, but surely there's a better way than charging players for literally anything new.
Another thing off the top of my head was just how unstable the servers seemed to be, to the point of where my friends and I who played together would be DC'd and then banned for "Disconnecting" REALLY often.
As usual Bamco falls flat on it's face for Gundam in the West. A tale as old as time itself :v Hey Bamco... give me EXVS 2 on PC, and give me Gundam Breaker 3: Break Edition on PC. I will buy both of those Day 1 :v I love EXVS, but I barely touch Maxiboost ON because I just don't really play my PS4 anymore, and most definitely not online where I have to pay extra money just to play the game I already bought online. I'd actively play EXVS if it were on PC and I didn't have to deal with that nonsense. I love EXVS and wish Bamco would stop shooting themselves in the foot when it comes to putting things out in the West, but I never associate Bamco with intelligence (Give me Soulcalibur 7).
It's nice seeing you mention EXVS at least. That game/series is seriously underrated in my personal opinion, and it's depressing Bamco seems terrified to do anything with it outside of Arcades in Japan. But again... they're seriously confusing with their decisions, especially with Gundam (why did you give us Versus and New Breaker when Maxiboost and Breaker 3 existed back then :v ...)
As a guy who played it, and is still playing it until the end, I feel like there was a mountain of other reasons that didn't get more than just a passing mention if even that.
- Minimal launch regions
- P2W
- Balance was / is atrocious.
- Unstable servers and getting disconnected punishes you.
- None of the skins actually being worth the price
I'm sure there's more that I can't think of off the top of my head, but there was a lot more to this than what was covered. I'm a little disappointed the investigation wasn't a tad more thorough.
It broke my heart that this game was shut down, it literally should've never been canceled I never had trouble finding a match or seeing people with outfits they paid real money for in the game. I started watching gundam because of this game. So BAMCO is just an enemy of the state in my mind. it's just o crazy they left it.
You'll probably have another chance to have another Gundam on Death of a Game sooner rather than later. Battle Operations 2 came out on steam a little while ago and its not doing so hot, sitting at a mostly negative rating. It still has a decent playerbase tho.
Technically no, GBO2 has been on PS4 for years and is still going strong. So while it may die on PC, its definitely far from dead
@@lacunarikain2 I can attest to this. It's got a much stronger player base on PS4 and I can't help but think the negative ratings are just PC gamers just not getting the slower more deliberate pace of GBO2.
@@mansman2167 yes and no. There's a ton of connectivity issues for gbo2 on pc they can't even play
@@mansman2167 plus GBO2 has no balance whatsoever and the mechanics like tackle, melee prio, stagger, stun, dodge roll frames, etc just don't function at anything othet than perfect ping. The Devs don't seem to care about anything outside of japan or gachapon money
@@lacunarikain2 The fact that the PS4 playerbase is still alive despite the "lack" of balance tells me it's a non-issue and PC players are just malding.
So balance is irrelevant.
The biggest part for me was monetization and how new units were pretty much inaccessible, what if I don't like Marazai and now have to go through the grind again.
Funny enough tho, I became a gundam fan thanks to the little info each unit had, like why this one is only "Gundam" while every other have a title, made me curious about the suits enough to watch the entire UC.
There was also the fact there was no implementation of a dedicated ant-cheat until after they announced the game was shutting down. The game felt vastly unfair at times, with most matches being too easy with opponents that barely put up a fight, or insanely hard where the opponents steamroll over you with no effort. While I can’t say all matches had cheaters, there were two incidents where it was blatant. One where a Zaku shot through a solid wall, killing me. And the other being a member of my team on a Point Capture mission starting outside of the spawn zone, and making his way to the objective before the match started.
This was my first Gundam experience. I watched Witch From Mercury not long after. I loved this introduction and it makes me sad it’s gone.
Also I was a beast with GunTank so rip
I love this game. I curse Bandai Japan's chronic upper mismanagement for it's failure.
I loved this game, it crushed me to see how short it was. The dash mechanic MADE this game so insanely fun!
I wish we could get a Gubdam hero shooter that was made with love. It could last for years if it was made right.
You can really tell the decision to can the game gave even the dev team whiplash, because a month later they announce the goddamn ZETA GUNDAM, one of the most iconic MS in its history, for the game that has a limited amount of time left.
I don't know if I agree that what made or broke the game was the lack of a story mode, although I will say the setting and stages lacked any particular "gundam" flavor...or flavor of any kind really. You'd think there'd at least be more Gundam themed stages. For me though the team comp thing was definitely a huge issue. Evolution copied Overwatch a little too well in that regard where team composition was pretty important, but most people just picked whatever they wanted and while I can't blame them for that because well, that's the fun of playing something like this as a Gundam fan; in some cases it basically guaranteed you were going to lose. Also the classification of the roles just sort of felt weird.
The heavy monotization was another huge issue, it was aggressive. Bamco has a really bad habit of not even being subtle with how much they exceedingly want your money and get ahead of themselves with game sinking monotization right out the gate and this was no exception. Then you throw in the unstable server issues (another Bamco staple.), lack of distinctive looking maps, some downright strange MS choices, and I hate to say this but also all the limitations that came with the game this was aped from and of course interest in it waned after a month. Bamco also just does not give their dev teams nearly as much support as they should. Its a miracle GBO2 is still going, but even that game has a number of issues and server woes that have never been touched.
I tried the game but it was probably at the stage where there were no players, and after I saw this video I understand what happened and when I think about it... it's a real shame, I mean as was said during the video itself Gundam has such a rich history and more than one series you showed "Online games" is really part of that because they didn't take some things from the stories of some of their series to put in the game
This wound not have happened if they added tequila gundam like we needed
Tequilla wouldn't have saved it. It could never reach its full potential without a poncho and guitarrón.
I, and probably many others, wanted Kampfer from day 1. Or at least in Season 2. Anyone still playing (I do lol) only get like a month or two with it because it's the last suit being added to the game.
@@Sameji my only comfort is maining it in gbo2
@@ohmabones2492 I have it in GBO2, I haven't got around to learning to play it though.
@@ohmabones2492 Kampfer is already good enough before the buffs, with the recent buff it is even scarier now even at higher cost.
This game lasting only a year is so insane. And after ow2's flop? Maybe the hero shooter genre is just doomed.
But also i dont think there's very much overlap with the fps and gundam fanbases LOL
One of Gundam's most popular online games ever was a 50v50 third person shooter...
I think that's a problem a lot of publishers don't get with live-service games: So many go up in flames in the first year (esp when released with "Beta" or "Early Access" labels) that a lot of potential players don't even bother now unless the game looks like it will really scratch an itch. So the initial launch pool is limited, making matchmaking/variety/challenge a problem, and players fall off, etc.
If publishers would guarantee a certain amount of support time for a game (say, two years) regardless of the profitability they would probably get much more up-front interest.
@@AtomicSluggIt's a flop mate. Let the ship sink, even the captain abandoned it.
Honestly? Good riddance to the hero shooter genre. All they ever are is just a generic, f2p game that's copy pasted from one game to another, microtransactions included. GunEvo was honestly the only one that I enjoyed, granted it was only for like a month before I eventually stopped playing it, but it was a fun month regardless
Aye, hero shooter is just an extension of the live service model whether you like it or not. Clearly the oversaturation of this subgenre has lent to massive diminishing returns.
Even SEGA knew this, so they were quick to discontinue Hyenas before it even launched.
It really... really hurts seeing GunEvo go. I was so hyped when I first saw the trailer, and I was (and fortunately still am) a Gundam fan for *years* prior! Overwatch 2 was flopping, Gundam had TONS of hype in the West with G-Witch, Bandai had the PERFECT opportunity here to capitalize on its rival's failure and introduce their own alternative, which would introduce thousands (or hopefully millions) to Gundam all across the world.
And then they just dropped the ball. HARD. Nerfs were given to MS which didn't need them (Sazabi was _supposed_ to be a tank unit, Bandai! Why the hell did you nerf its already weak shield?! WHYYYYY?!), nothing was done to even try and promote the game, bugs were everywhere, and the oddball additions to the roster just kept driving away new players. Then, as a last "fuck you!" to its playerbase, they announced Zeta Gundam and Kampfer right after the shutdown began.
Not since Pacific Rim 2 had I ever seen something I dearly wanted fumble so badly.
The reasons I stopped playing.
1. Terrible load times - take forever to get into a game sometimes
2. Monetization - everything was locked behind a paywall and the cosmetics were not worth it
3. Lack of content - Needed more gundams and play styles.
4. Barbatos and Exia domination - would wipe out my teammates all the time and if my own team melee was bad he couldnt be stopped without a high price, lead to rage quitters.
5. Lack of Gundam Wing content - Wing is the gundam I grew up on and I lose interest in gundam games that doesnt have enough Wing or even G gundam representation.