$17 and a few years later
Back in 2022, this was (I think) in early access. At the time, there were two options for playing the game: the demo and the full game. In the demo, the game only allowed you to use the weapons that we're on that table with the targets and such, and if you wanted to access more of the weapons, you'd pay up.
I paid about $17.47 for it. At the time, I thought this game could be the H3VR of Meta Quest platform since H3VR is (obviously) never going to be on here. It kept updating with more features here and there with cool tactical maps and things, and I kept playing the game up until I got bored with it and decided to move on to other games.
Then one day, I decided to see how the game was doing (I think around 2025?), come to find out that they made it free to play (kind of how Population: One went free to play). So I went to see how and what changed from the previous time I've played....
Things that have changed:
Weapons are now locked by ranks, which would've been fine if it weren't for the fact I can't even use them in Sandbox mode. In the older builds, you had all access to the weapons and didn't have to pay for a "Founders Pack," which is this games battle pass (that they keep showing almost every time).
Another thing that changed was the introduction of skins (I'm not sure if this was when the game went F2P* ((*free to play)) or they had skins beforehand), which again would've been fine had it not been the way you obtained them: via a slot machine (hey, if Counter Strike did it, why not this game?). There's also the option to trade with other players and whatnot for these skins, and you needed Lucky Tickets for it (yes, I know you can use shiny coins to buy the skins, but that's not my point) which if you wanted more could cost around 7$ (for 8) to over 27$ (for 60, which may or may not be that bad, idk).
There also came a map builder recently, but I didn't really care for it that much.
So, what's the point of this? If you are going to make your game free after a few years of making it a "paid for" experience, at least compensate for the people who bought it before. Why should I have to pay a 10$ subscription to be able to use the guns in a game I paid $17.47 for? And yes, while you can just play the game and rank to earn the weapons, I shouldn't have to do that in SANDBOX. I can't seem to contact the developer anywhere as their discord is wiped, and no one seems to care about it, so I'm just posting this here in case if anyone feels the same way about it.
Is it kinda bad that I wanted this game to be good? I mean, I guess I should've seen the signs of when they decided to use generative AI and the graphics and gameplay haven't been really all that polished.
If you don't care and just wanted to play, cool for ya. I'm not supporting the dev for the reasons above. If I can't get a refund because the game went F2P with the most scummy money-making practices I've ever seen, then I guess I won't be playing.
I'm not sure if this review will be seen by anyone, but if it does, then I hope the developer can see what many other people who paid for it before see.
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