“One of the Worst Games of All Time” Asks for a Second Chance – Orion:Prelude
Being listed on the “Worst Games Ever” list is no easy task. Did we all forget the game industry crash in the 80s, which was caused by the constant release of horrific games? However, Orion: Prelude released in 2012 and somehow managed to make it onto this list, earning themselves only a 35% positive rating on Steam with thousands of reviews. The disappointment from fans was blatantly obvious, as they felt the game had the potential to be so great, but did not utilize it and thus fell completely flat.
For those who are unaware, Orion is a Sci-Fi shooter that pits your group of friends together against the vicious dinosaur horde. Using advanced weaponry and unique vehicles, you and your teammates must cooperate in order to complete objectives and push back the destructive dinos. The game features survival-based gameplay, as well as arena combat. All of this takes place in the game’s massive open world, which is just begging to be explored. For those of us who would like to take control of the dinosaurs, there is also a rampage game mode which allows you to take control of a dinosaur and rain destruction upon the human opponents.
The developers of Orion were extremely unsatisfied with their game’s standing in the community. Not only were they disappointed with the community’s reaction, but they were fully aware that this was their own fault. Orion was not the game that they wanted it to be, and thus they decided to press on with updating the game in order to make it what they believed it should have been. Now, over 60 updates and 18,000 user reviews later, the game has managed to rise from a 35% to a 75% positive rating. I will say that I am extremely impressed with their devotion to their game. Rather than abandon Orion: Prelude and make a new game, they decided to stick behind their poor product in order to turn it into something good. They did not want consumers to feel like they had wasted their money, as they would have had the devs just decided to move on to a new project. Thus, anyone who purchased the game early was able to have access to these updates and see the game progress over the past few years.
Orion is now a very solid game. It features some extremely entertaining co-op gameplay, with over 20 maps to play on, and 7 vehicles to cruise around in. There are 150 levels of player progression, meaning that your character will persist from match to match. The game supports online and offline play, and showcases a huge variety of weaponry and other gear to equip your character with. Now that the game has been updated, the developers of Orion: Prelude ask for everyone to give the game a second chance. As of now, the game is free on Steam for the next week (starting May 4th) and is also purchasable for $1. Orion: Prelude is one of the best examples of a game that was just a disaster at launch, but through hard work and persistence has become an extremely enjoyable co-op experience. A quote that is contained in the news post reads: “Games cannot fail, only developers can”, and as we see with the progress Orion: Prelude has made, this is an extremely true statement.