Where is Phantom Galaxies, which received a 50,000 wishlist on Steam but received a lot of bad reviews?

By Zen, PANews

Mecha is the romance of men, and the universe is the ultimate romance of mankind. Among the many game genres, the windy mecha and the infinite universe will always occupy a place in hardcore games. Whether it is in August this year, it topped the best-selling list on Steam, with a maximum of 150,000 simultaneous online users, and the player’s reputation is also “particularly praised” Armored Core 6: Armored Core 6, or Star Citizen, which has been in development for more than ten years and has crowdfunded 600 million, but has not yet been officially released, all confirm this.

In November of this year, Phantom Galaxies, a sci-fi action game that combines mech combat and space exploration, launched an early version on Steam, and has received more than 50,000 wishlists before that. Due to Steam policy restrictions, Phantom Galaxies released on the platform are castrated versions that cannot be integrated with Web3. But it’s not easy for a Web3 game to get so much anticipation on a gaming platform with a high concentration of Web2 players — even if it gets nearly 75% of the negative reviews after its launch.

Development Team Blowfish Turns to Web3 After Being Acquired by Animoca Brands

Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Sydney, Blowfish Studios (“Blowfish”), an independent game developer and publisher, was founded by computer software and 3D graphics industry veteran Benjamin Lee and creative director Aaron Grove, who has extensive experience in the visual effects field. Blowfish has more than 30 games, including Qbism, Siegecraft, Morphite, Projection: First Light, and Storm Boy, which have a combined player of at least 2.5 million.

In July 2021, Animoca Brands acquired a 100% stake in Blowfish Studios. After becoming a subsidiary, Blowfish management remained the same team and worked closely with Animoca Brands to coordinate efforts related to blockchain integration, tokens, NFTs, P2E, synergies and product launches. Notably, at the bottom of Animoca Brands’ acquisition announcement, there are two screenshots of the then-unreleased beta version of Blowfish. Judging from the space base and spaceship shown in the pictures, it can be judged that this game is the predecessor of Phantom Galaxies. In other words, Blowfish Studios was already working on Phantom Galaxies before the acquisition agreement was reached, and only turned into the Web3 space after being acquired by Animoca.

In the two years since it was acquired, Blowfish has continued to recruit and expand its team from 30 to more than 100 people, leading an art team of more than 40 people led by Aaron Grove alone, specializing in 2D, 3D, animation, UI/UX, and audio. The team’s massive expansion is supported by abundant funds, and in addition to being backed by the mountain of Animoca, Blowfish has also gained the support of many institutions and Web3 users with the Phantom Galaxies sign. For instance, in May 2022, Phantom Galaxies closed a $19.3 million private placement through the sale of NFTs of 7,734 planets and asteroids, with strategic backers including Sequoia China, Liberty City Ventures, GameFi Ventures, Everest Ventures Group, and other well-known investment institutions, as well as: Several gaming guilds, including Avocado DAO, YGG, and YGG SEA.

Phantom Galaxies: A 3A mecha game belonging to Web3

Set in a vast universe, Phantom Galaxies is a sci-fi action RPG designed to transport players into a universe filled with mecha combat, artificially crafted terrain, and immersive galaxies. The story takes place in the aftermath of an interstellar war, a squadron of Ranger pilots made up of elite mech pilots dedicated to protecting human colonies on the known borders of space. Players take on the role of an ensign in a squadron of rangers, piloting a modified mechanized starfighter to defend against the invasion of pirates, alien enemies.

The game modes of Phantom Galaxies include a variety of missions, such as the main story and side quests in singleplayer, as well as PvP battles and PvE bounties in multiplayer. The game emphasizes player freedom, and when engaging in fast-paced battles with enemy mechs and spaceships, players can seamlessly switch between third-person mech battles and starship dogfights, prioritizing speed or firepower as the game needs. Players choose between four unique mech classes and customize their weaponry. In addition, players can travel between the stars in the game, exploring areas inhabited by pirates, scavengers, and rogue factions, and exploring the vast Canis Major galaxy to discover legends and history while uncovering ancient secrets.

Like most Web3 games, the Web3-integrated Phantom Galaxies emphasizes the concept of digital ownership, allowing players to own digital assets in the form of NFTs, such as player dormitories, starfighter hangars, and even entire planets mentioned above. These digital assets can be developed and used in a variety of in-game activities, such as trading items and using the game’s vast crafting system. This integration provides players with new ways to own, trade, and leverage digital assets in the game.

In terms of gaming tokens, in July 2022, Phantom Galaxies launched the ASTRAFER token, which is used for governance, starfighter fusion, and participation in certain activities. ASTRAFER is based on the Polygon sidechain and has been bridged to the Ethereum mainnet. At the time of its initial launch, ASTRAFER was limited to swapping on the Polygon decentralized exchange QuickSwap and earning on the Astrafite Rush event. The token reached its current all-time high of about $4 1 month after its launch (current price of about $0.75 as of November 29, 2023). AS AN IMPORTANT UNIVERSAL CURRENCY, ASTRALFER CAN ALSO BE OBTAINED IN THE GAME IN A VARIETY OF WAYS, FOR EXAMPLE, THE AFOREMENTIONED PLANETARY NFT WILL ALSO BE ALLOCATED A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF ASTRAFER, AND ITS OWNER CAN DIRECTLY EARN A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF TOKENS. IN THE FUTURE, A NEW PATROL GAME MODE AND SOME BOUNTY TYPES WILL REWARD ASTRAFER.

From 50,000 wishlists to encounters to a large number of bad reviews

In September, Phantom Galaxies announced plans to launch an early access version of the game in November, and will release different versions on the Epic Games Store and Steam — the Web3-integrated version will be available on the Epic Games Store, and the Web3-integrated version will be available on Steam. Phantom Galaxies also introduces the Ranger ABC progression system, which tracks a player’s activity over a certain period of time (currently set at 1 month) until it resets at the start of a new cycle. In order to progress in Ranger ABC, players need to earn activity points, and reaching a certain activity level will earn rewards. Ranger ABC is divided into three reward tracks: Standard, Advanced, and Elite, of which the Elite track is only for Web3 games.

Phantom Galaxies Early Access was originally scheduled to go live on November 2, but was skipped to November 15. With just a week to go, Phantom Galaxies surpassed the 50,000 Steam wishlist mark, which shows that the production of the game has indeed won the expectation and recognition of some mainstream players. It is important to know that in Steam, games with more than 10,000 wishlists can usually gain exposure, for example, when players search for tags such as “mecha” and “space”, games with tens of thousands of wishlists like Phantom Galaxies will be displayed at the top of the list.

However, after the early access to the game was officially launched on Steam, Phantom Galaxies broke the hearts of players who had high expectations for it, and received a large number of negative reviews, with a negative review rate of about 75%. The content that players complained about includes, but is not limited to: frequent lag and disconnection caused by game server problems (the server starts to be overloaded with more than 500 players), only supports English instead of multiple languages advertised in the early stage, the main story is too short, the camera sensitivity is too high, the character image can only be randomly generated, and the spaceship shooting feel and feedback are not good.

In response to the flood of bad reviews, the developers immediately released a patch for the game a week later, making improvements to the server, fixing stability fixes, and fixing problems such as character dialogue and combat details in the game. Phantom Galaxies also promises more major updates to be released in the near future, including further server stabilization, support for other languages, experience balance, and more.

The users gathered on Steam are almost all typical Web2 players, and judging from their discussions about Phantom Galaxies, most gamers are still resistant to NFTs, and there are also some who believe that such free-to-play games are inducing them to transition to NFT adoption and reject the game. However, the “pickiness” of the vast majority of players lies in the quality of the game and the content itself. In these aspects, in general, in addition to the lack of language variety and server problems, as a pre-emptive version of the game, Phantom Galaxies has received some recognition, and many Chinese users are also leaving messages to the developer requesting the release of the Chinese version as soon as possible.

According to Phantom Galaxies’ official announcement, the current Early Access version will last for at least one year, but new content will continue to be released every month after that. During this time, Phantom Galaxies’ reversal of the wind among Web2 players is a top priority and the key to the game’s further breakthrough. As for exactly how many players will be attracted to the Web3 version of the game, it remains to be seen in the longer term.