At this point, reading that NetEase’s survival shooter Once Human is facing technical issues probably feels like “water is wet”-level news, but indeed the devs at Starry Studios are having a rough time, particularly with maintenance related to a patch that was scheduled for today.
The patch in question was intended to bring in things like a regularly occurring PvP world event and the promise of multiple bug fixes and optimizations. However, the game’s site and especially its Discord has been alight with multiple notices of maintenance being extended as a result of a “critical bug.”
As of early this morning, the maintenance ended and the patch went live, but that has brought on a slew of new problems, namely reports from players that their bases are ruined, that characters and servers are missing, and that items have disappeared, on top of the problem of ongoing queues.
Punctuating it all is Starry Studio’s requirement that players download NetEase’s Loading Bay launcher in order to claim beta rewards. Starry explained in a Discord FAQ that this is because account information is specific to this launcher and assures fans that, despite the inconvenience, the studio is “in full compliance with local laws and regulations regarding user privacy and the collection of private information.”
Even with all of the game’s continuing isuses, Once Human is still doing numbers on Steam, so presumably players are still hungry for this game’s brand of anomalous survival sandbox gameplay. It all just remains extremely wobbly.
