Age Of Water Survival Crafting MMO Launches To Mixed Reviews On Steam Over Pay-To-Win Concerns

Some players are throwing pay-to-win claims at the newly launched Early Access survival crafting game Age of Water, with accusations flying that buying the Gold edition gives in-game advantages over the base edition of the game.

The main items in question are the upgraded boats Gold Edition players receive over their standard edition counterparts. The starting boat, prologue reward boat, and a later quest boat reward are upgraded for Gold Edition owners of Age of Water.

There's been much unhappiness in the Steam reviews and on the forums, enough so that Age of Water devs have had to respond to the pay-to-win claims in a post.

"All bonuses in the premium editions were designed to give a starting boost to help with the first few hours in PvE, and not to influence success in PvP or PvE beyond the first few hours of gameplay," the post reads.

"We want success in battle to depend solely on players themselves, and we will not sell this for money. If we see that the bonuses are not working as they should, we will promptly make the necessary changes to the game as a matter of priority. Currently, the team is carefully studying your feedback and statistics."

Regardless of their intention, the devs have created a bad optic for their game by allowing better items to be available to purchasers of an upgraded pack. While the pay-to-win claims make up the majority of the negative reviews, there are some that mention that the game may not quite be ready for Early Access (an early access that's already had delays), citing server issues specifically.

Here's the Early Acces Launch trailer if you're interested.