Perhaps Wild West Online is attempting to emulate life on the actual historical frontier. This week’s launch has certainly been uncertain, fraught with peril, and an unsure venture. As pretty much anyone could have predicted, the western MMO has taken a savage beating on Steam for being largely unfinished (which is to be expected, since the whole game was revamped not just two months ago).
Steam reviewers have given WWO mostly negative reviews, labeling the game as a “money grab” with a poor graphics engine, no PvE content, and pretty much no content to experience at the present. One large point of contention was the lack of playable female characters. Can someone get this game an “under construction” GIF from the 1990s?
Even the developers acknowledged the criticism: “Howdy partners, quick Steam update! Much like PUBG did, Wild West Online took an immediate hit with negative reviews! We began at 2% positive and in one day are up to 39% positive in all languages. YeeeeHaww here we come… saddle up guys!”
That’s a weird tone to strike.
The studio continued to waffle on how much it wants to adapt the game to a PvE audience by saying, “We also want to directly address the folks who expected a full PVE MMO: as we’ve discussed with folks since the early days, this is at its core PVP MMO, with PVE elements (resourcing, simple NPC quests, homesteading). This has been and will be our focus: an MMO rooted in core PVP gameplay, with social and PVE elements to round it out.”
