Spacelords, the reimagined free-to-play version of MercurySteam’s online shooter Raiders of the Broken Planet, is now available on Steam in its new incarnation.
The game, from the developers of the Castlevania: Lords of Shadow series, released as Raiders of the Broken Planet in September 2017 but failed to find much of an audience. Most players were confused by the business model, which had the first episode, just a small part of the game, free – but the rest of the episodes had to either be paid for or ‘rented’ with in-game gold.
Spacelords, which uses the same Steam page as Raiders of the Broken Planet, has therefore unfortunately picked up the current ‘Mixed’ player rating. Game director Enric Álvarez told us that most of the criticism is down to the business model, “not because of the gameplay, the aesthetics, or the proposal in itself.” Most of the player confusion seems to stem from Steam labelling the game as free-to-play, even though previously the game didn’t really fit into that category.
Now the game has been rebranded as Spacelords, it is properly free-to-play. The relaunch also marks the release of the game’s fourth episode, Council Apocalypse, which will close the game’s first story arc. All episodes, including the new one, are free – with none of that silly renting nonsense.
The game has also undergone a complete redesign of their character progression system, allowing players to access all characters without restrictions. MercurySteam say they will “steadily” add new content such as characters, weapons and skins over the following months, although there’s no word yet on Episode 5 and the first newstory arc under the Spacelords name.