Despite A "Player Count Lower Than We'd Like," Spectre Divide Says The F2P Shooter Isn't Going Anywhere

Look, things haven't gone swimmingly for Spectre Divide since it launched a little over a month ago. Despite an interesting "Duality" mechanic allowing you to play 2 bodies at the same time and a consultation partnership with shroud, the team-based shooter quickly found itself subject to Mixed Steam reviews, a "delusional" monetization mistake, and player counts currently trending around 2.5K on Steam.

In our own First Look video (below), Ethos found some good in the game, but wondered about the long-term success of Mountaintop Studios' project given a crowded genre and the upcoming Call of Duty 6 release.

On that front, the team says they have enough funds to support the game for a "long time." The recent layoffs at the studio brought the team size back down to about 75 developers and also extended the game's timeline a bit.

That doesn't mean the team isn't concerned about where things stand, though. In a post on the game's site, CEO Nate Mitchell acknowledges that Spectre Divide's "player count is lower than we’d all like" while referencing recent reporting using the often misquoted Mark Twain saying, "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."

Being a small studio, Mitchell speaks a lot about marketing budgets and the need for higher player counts to keep matchmaking smooth and fair. He even acknowledges that while launching closer to the holidays may not have been ideal, "If we knew everything we know now, we’d have definitely delayed a few weeks."

As the team preps for a Season 1 release in December or January, the work now focuses to slowing down the production of cash shop cosmetics and shifting more towards directly actioning feedback given by players, like some of yesterday's update already implemented. 

Despite the challenges, Mitchell assures players that "Spectre isn’t going anywhere. The servers aren’t shutting down, and the updates aren’t going to stop." They also mention tricks they can implement to reduce queue times should matchmaking continue to slow down.

Now for my two cents, and this is a hard one for me. I never like seeing games that try new things go under. I REALLY don't like seeing passionate teams and their work close. That said, there's another saying. "You only get one chance to make a first impression." In the world of video games, you can sometimes work your way into two or three attempts at a first impression via a F2P conversion or a console release. Given that Spectre Divide is already F2P and that the team isn't looking at console until PC is all set, I don't know where those new chances come from now. “We’ll be PC-only at launch, but console versions and controller support are both planned for post-launch,” reads the FAQ on Discord.

Sure, you'll probably get a spike of players when the first season drops, but how many of those are actually going to be new players and not returning players checking out the improvements made in Season 0?

I agree with Mitchell in the post when he points towards the community being the primary driver of player acquisition at this point. If players want Spectre Divide to survive, I think a lot is riding on them now, fair or not.