No, no, no, stalker kitten. It's a global launch - but not really. Still treating it as such by "celebrating" it in-game with lots of gibs for finally going global.
But still not a proper global launch, you fool!
Did some digging and the game has been a giant fucking mess, even in Korea so it's not just the global server. It's the devs. Something something the fish rots by the head.
From
Namuwiki, as translated by ChatGPT.
According to the CEO, like Star Rail, the game was heavily influenced by Persona 5. Before Star Rail’s release, it was difficult to find investors, but after Star Rail’s success, they were inundated with investment offers.
...It shows.
The game's first and only closed beta test (CBT) was held from November 8 to 11, 2024. However, it received harsh criticism due to numerous bugs, absence of sound, and an inconvenient system. In response, the developer stated in the CBT closure announcement that it was based on the June 2024 version.
?????????????????
So they did a closed beta, got shat on, shut the whole thing down, and said "No, no, you're beta testing an outdated version! Don't worry! This isn’t the final product!"
Assuming they aren't talking out of their ass here;
- Why go "Muh old build" for a damn beta test instead of taking the feedback seriously? If this wasn't the actual build that needed testing, where is it then?
- If the June build wasn't indicative of the final product, why fucking run it for your test?
- Okay, so the CBT happened, but it's still buggy and crashes a lot? What was actually fixed? Four days do fuck all.
It seems to me that the CBT wasn't so much a test as it was a PR move for interest and investors (given that we know they only got funded on the back of Star Rail) rather than testing the damn game. It was super short and it seemed to end due to criticism.
The game is launching globally for real in a little over two weeks (June 18th). I am not hopeful. I was actually willing to cut them some slack here, small team, little resources, issues with finding investors apparently, but everything just seems like it's been one giant QA test you can sink money into and they won't own up to that.
No wonder I can't find any revenue data, even for the East Asian version.
For Blackstorm's sake, I hope they get their shit together come the actual launch. And I'm not gonna eat my words now. Certainly not if the game continues to be ass upon release and they pull the "No, that was just an older build" card again.
Also:
Former kt Rolster StarCraft pro gamer Park Jae-young served as the planning director, which became a topic of interest.
It was nicknamed "K-Star Rail" or "Koreail" even before its release. According to an interview with the CEO, the game was developed before the release of Honkai: Star Rail. However, although they claim to have started development first, it is widely accepted that they referenced Honkai: Star Rail for many aspects, as a large portion of the systems—such as the detailed difficulty levels for resource farming dungeons, the battle entry cutscenes, the design and layout of the UI—are so similar that they appear almost identical.
Sounds like massive cope to me.
"No it was OUR idea first!"
