Last Epoch’s 1.0 launch has seen the game’s player base spike massively in comparison to its early access release, but that launch has come with rampant server issues as it struggles to handle the influx of players. As a result, the title is getting review bombed on Steam.
Though a number of ARPGs have come out and attempted to compete with Diablo‘s massive influence on the market, few have stuck long-term. Path of Exile stands out as the most successful competitor in the genre.
However, Last Epoch has emerged as a heavy hitter. The devs weren’t afraid to take a direct jab at Diablo 4, a game that’s had a less-than-stellar post launch offering in the eyes of many longtime fans of the series and genre.
The game’s 1.0 launch has seen a huge amount of players hopping in to give it a try themselves, but the game quickly rising to over 150k concurrent players has come at the cost of server stability. Players stuck in long queues and frustrated with server instability have tank the game’s overall rating post-launch.
Last Epoch is suffering from success
The story of a game having trouble due to being too popular isn’t a new one. In fact, Helldivers 2 is a recent example of a game that was – and still is – plagued by server issues due to a massive influx of players.
It seems to be much the same story with Last Epoch, a game that’s at 150k concurrent players and rising, as many of them are unable to access the game.
It’s at the point where the devs have had to take the servers down completely the day of their 1.0 launch for a bit to try and address some of these problems.
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⚠️Online Services Update⚠️ At 11:20 CST, we will be taking the servers offline for approximately 1 hour to work on transition time issues and deploy a service to help us better diagnose issues and text fixes. pic.twitter.com/XcjuOVJ04a
— Last Epoch (@LastEpoch) February 22, 2024
While players interacting with their tweets about the situation have been supportive and patient, that isn’t true of those who were trying to get in on the action day 1. Many took to the Steam reviews and slammed the devs for being unable to handle the player count.
Steam reviews have shifted to an overall mixed rating as of late, with many giving the game negative reviews, claiming that the game itself is good and saying they’d update when servers are working as intended.
“The game’s great, and everything people say about it being not as hard as PoE and not as dumbed-down as D4 is true, BUT servers are definitely not keeping up with the number of players,” one Steam user lamented.
“Since they are selling an almost unplayable game for most of the day I’m leaving a negative review so that no one has to look at 30+ bucks spent on loading screen. I will update the review if it changes.”
All that said, it’s possible to create an offline character if you don’t want to deal with server issues. However, many of the game’s features are unavailable offline, and it’s impossible to swap an offline character into the online game. This is another reason some are giving the game negative reviews.
While Last Epoch’s launch has been successful in the sense that people really like the game, it seems to be yet another case of a breakout success being hampered by the inability to keep up with how many people are playing.