To open, until December 11th, 2017 Absolver is $15 at 50% off on Steam and PS4.

The year's most under-appreciated and overlooked fighting game, Absolver, and the hopeful relationship between developer and community- and how that has brought the players back, and the new players in.

Absolver is a weird game. It's a fighting game that is set within an open world, with bosses, collectibles, and simultaneously is a hyper-complex online pvp focused deck building experimentation exercise of trial and error. This entry is not about that aspect, but the untold story of a developer's passion and dedication, to the players who return it to them with as much heart-felt support as I have ever seen toward indie games at large.

Absolver, while a supremely executed concept with only For Honor as a comparable point of context, had one of the most tragic launches having to do with server instability, a confused audience expecting so much from the 'open world action rpg' aspect, walking away or running angrily to the steam store to leave a negative review, murdering the player count from 16k to a daily average to around 200 in under a month. This weekend, things changed dramatically, and it's worth the long read that follows for what Bungie failed to do with Destiny 2, EA with Battlefront, and so many other less-than-great business practices in video games- and what Sloclap did do in contrast with only around 20 people dedicated to a vision to share and an innovation/point to make in the fighting-games arena.

So, that's a nice general, but it boils down to how a Sloclap, as a developer, has spoken to it's community, and how they have listened, very very closely to the community. Even when a lot of that community, like the reviews on steam might indicate (dude these are some of the most savage and ill informed reviews I've ever seen in my life)- missed the point of the game entirely or even tried to understand it.

But lets not go there. Sloclap's heartfelt and mysteriously transparent communication with it's community, chatting about updates, holding contests and then rebuilding it for use in-game, being communicative, and in return, fans who broke the barrier to the brilliance that is the combat deck and all moves unlocked, as well as in awe sort of watching the devs surprise drop content/feature bombs that most players who quit are completely unaware of. Their latest patch which introduced... a bunch... still has yet to get a trailer- that's on slowclap again for poor advertising- which is maybe the saddest part of this story that kind of continues beyond the scope of this writeup, and gives way for a possibility that this revival might 'fail' and that the community will actually eventually 'die'. The offset to that gloom and doom is aformentioned feature bombs and communication to player demand.

They fundamentally listen. They respond and don't bullshit. That's huge, it's not something companies really do well all the time, and then, also make good on promises made, but also go overboard and surprise you with four or five things they didn't list on the upcoming patch notes. They do that to keep everything fresh, as Absolver is obviously as much about fashion as it is about fighting. That's just how it is. And it's great. Cosmetics aside, however they keep the same momentum with their 7 programmer staff and run betas for changes which is becoming more common-place but it's the community feed back that decides between beta-patches by majority-rules, plus some of slowclaps flexability with absolver's timing based combat, make for a moving target that I imagine if the money is there is pretty fun to shoot at. And the players get that, the ones like me anyway. I get having a game that in a lot of ways like PUBG, you ask why has nobody REALLY done this yet- also, it's amazingly good, and, that team is so tiny, AND they don't do the expected wallet gouging at an easy thirty bucks, and every content or expansion will be free, another promise made by Sloclap, and by their track record I have to believe that, as do most fans still playing/chatting daily.

that builds communities that return the dedication and support back to the developers that make more than good on what they fix, and over-deliver on content for free. That doesn't sound like a big deal but for the odds that Absolver has faced. And you can go read all of them on their devblog, or steam, wherever, because they own it and say, yo, we're not just sorry, we're gonna dedicate our lives to show you how cool this thing can be. Every day. Players who were hooked from the start, well, sure, they might play, but that kind of attitude out of a gaming company making a game you like, you don't just stick around for that but you celebrate it and cheer it on.

The part where this story gets interesting and I feel the bomb crew/cast could have found at least hours of discussion especially given the heavy focus on loot crates, end-game shortages (battlefront, destiny 2), is that even post launch, Absolver's four person development team continued to make good on promises to fix, to add content and modes, and go above and beyond the promises to a degree that is nothing short of heroic and historic for independent game developer dedication to their community. October offered a set of new gear, november added an entirely reworked reward system to PVP, but because of the server state at launch, and the misunderstanding around the game's story mode being the core to what is essentially a fighting game, all filtering into the steam reviews, - no amount of effort seemed to stop the dogpile of negativity, and the game would have moments of rebound, but would taper down once again to the hardcore and dedicated. "Dead game" was all too common a label thrown at Absolver. Still, however Sloclap refused to break their promise and dedication to their community.

In the face of a player count that at times would go as low as 88 concurrent players, from September's launch of 16k, they persisted, and I among others I now have become close to over the official and private discord channels- have enjoyed a game that continues to grow, and finally, as of last Thursday, has seen a giant spike in concurrent players. The latest update with a 3v3 mode and so much gear content, an entirely new in-game currency for customizing gear, a matchmaking and UI overhaul, community-driven rebalancing, and offering the game at 50% off this weekend ***ending dec. 11th- has spiked the player base back up to over a thousand concurrently playing, and the reviews on steam have gone from 'mixed', from the 6000 reviews made close to launch, to now 'mostly positive' because of the dedication and insane efforts made by Sloclap, generously offered at half the already low cost of $30.

This is in no small way due to the community on discord, the official channel or otherwise. This is a third chapter that I think is unique to Absolver's ongoing story of success or demise. As the game was largely either misunderstood as a 'dark souls with kung fu', or as a fighting game with too little reward for winning, there were players like myself who stuck with it, the hook of the deck building and the joy of winning for winning's sake, getting better and learning every style, every move, etc kept me playing. That is largely the story behind the small but dedicated hardcore players I converse strategies with daily on discord or steam. Now, with this weekend's development, sale, new systems and game mode, people are coming back, or coming in fresh, but the understanding of the game as a PVP focused game from word of mouth since september, and the robust reward system implimented post launch has people writing the most positive reviews in contrast to some of the worst at launch.

That doesn't cover half the complexity of Absolver's ongoing saga, from developer heroism, and dedication to a dedicated community, the community in turn doing literally everything in their power to seize windows of opportunity to help the company in turn, from twitter posts, buying multiple gift copies for friends, and a concentrated effort to both review and explain the unique and innovative nature of Absolver on steam.

I write all of this because as GB has so much on it's plate to review, it is something that should be discussed in the larger picture for independent developers and their dedication rewarded with a community that returns the favor on good faith and promises kept- something that in the rightfully pessimistic atmosphere regarding post-launch support and communication between developer and playerbase, is a story of relative success in the overall atmosphere for video game developers, and hardcore community being open, vocal, and helping each other. In my mind, it's the best underdog story that does deserve acknowledgement.

To close this long post, I have logged over 600 hours and play literally every day, and have never gotten bored or felt as though I've mastered any aspect of the game- if I do, I help the community, or give my input to the chat where the developers are ever-present. I won't expect everyone to like the game, but for any who were warned to stay away from Absolver because of problems at launch, for half off until Dec. 11th, this game is worth your $15, and the four-person development teams efforts are nothing short of unprecedented in my entire lifetime of following videogames, and that is something worth supporting alone.

Good to see that it's chugging along. I put in 15 hours or so around launch and had a really good time with it, but it ended up taking backseat with Tekken 7 as a direct competitor of my time and other multiplayer games I mess with (Battlerite, League, R6:Siege, PUBG). Really solid game though, I wish it well.

What can you tell us about what displays of dedication and strong community there were, save for the continued content from the devs and the reviews/discord from users.

I mean, what sorts of developer heroics and community help are we talkin about? It sounds like there's an inspiring story in here somewhere, and now that you've put us on to it, one that I'd quite like to learn more about.

So... people warmed to the PvP?
I don't know, it didn't click with me, it was a while ago now so i struggle to remember but i got through the 5 hour story, which was mostly not knowing where to go and running around being lost constantly, i couldn't recommend it to friends to build a little coop group because there was nothing left to do. Fighting other players was fine but having 4 stances tie in with 4 different attack directions and others moves that come out from directional... ugh, it's not an overly complicated system if you put in time to get used to it, but the randomness of the deck building means every opponent is completely different, which might be a positive for some but it's a negative for me, add to that the Dark Souls style stamina system and i think there's limited blocking isn't there? It's so much harder to get into than something like Tekken.
I like fighting games, 213 hours in Tekken 7 and counting, the promise of this deep combat system tied with it's co-op really painted a great picture for Absolver, so to hear they've been doubling down on PvP content is a shame.

Every thing i read about it talks about how bad the pvp is to get into with most people cheesing one move over and over. This game has been on my radar for a while though.

I checked the reviews like yesterday or so and it was still mixed good to see it's getting better with updates.

I'd really like to read more on how the game was turned around. It would be interesting to see the developers themselves talk on it. I know the "Dark Souls but X" phrasing provides a really easy shorthand to explain games, but I also wonder if we're not shaving off important details about the games we're trying to talk about by relying on it too much. Especially because games that are like Dark Souls tend to have very intricate systems that need to be explained at-length. Just looking at it from the outside though, originally seeing Dark Souls being streamed I saw an appeal in it that I didn't see in Absolver. The idea of the open-world game with a fighting style reliant on timing and encounters communicates well, but I found the art style somewhat plain and unvarying, and the whole thing seemed a bit aimless. Maybe this is one of those things that's since been improved in updates, but it seemed like players often weren't receiving tangible rewards for the fights they were winning.

Seriously? Did I just imagine Blade Symphony or something?

That aside, good write up OP. Because of my brief foray with Blade Symphony, I saw potential in Absolver when I first heard of it and am glad to see it's moving toward living up to that.

I really think the awful way games press takes to saying every game is like Dark Souls these day is just super lazy and hurts games like Absolver. For example I heard Rorie say on UPF that Hollow Knight was "Dark Souls, but with bugs" - what an awful way to describe that game. I love Rorie, so don't take that as Rorie hate, but games press just seems to describe anything with a system somewhat resembling a Dark Souls like system as being like Dark Souls. I really hope games press gets away from doing that. People seemed to think Absolver was somehow anything like Dark Souls because it had a stamina management system. When people in games press end up comparing something to Dark Souls like that, they instantly turn away thousands of people and that's a shame.

@coryukin: hollow knight is absolutely a souls like though. I consider anything with the "soul currency" a souls like since thats pretty much the unique thing to those games

@oursin_360: Not even close to a "souls like". Nothing about Hollow Knight makes me think Dark Souls except for that single system. But borrowing a system from a game does not make it a clone or "souls-like". If I knew nothing about Hollow Knight and someone said to me, "it's like Dark Souls" I would go in with the expectation of the things that define Dark Souls:

- 3D world

- Story told through gameplay, world elements,and item descriptions

- action warm ups

- third person combat

- asynchronous multiplayer

- corpse-running

- stamina management

- a deliberate combat system with animation priority

Simply calling anything that has one or two systems from Dark Souls a "soulslike" hampers the development of games that take the good ideas of Dark Souls and implements and integrates them in new and interesting way as well as turning away people who do not like the defining factors of Dark Souls. I could, for example, see a scenario where someone does not like Dark Souls, Lords of the Fallen, or the Surge, but does like Hollow Knight because Hollow Knight plays nothing like Dark Souls in any way.

Calling it a metroidvania is better than calling it a souls like? You collect "souls" , you die you get a chance to get your souls back, if you die before that you lose your souls. Souls Like. Dark souls is basically a 3d metroidvania other wise.

"Dark Souls is basically a 3D metroidvania other wise"

One of the most reductive things I've ever heard about Dark Souls or Metroid. And I'm counting the "games journalist" that said Overwatch reminded him of Dark Souls. Nothing about the core mechanics of Dark Souls are anything similar to Metroid or Hollow Knight. Metroid has none of the things I listed as defining features of Dark Souls. Hollow Knight has only corpse running. Comparing every action game to Dark Souls not only ignores what makes them unique, it also sets them up for failure - as was my case for Absolver. Absolver is nothing like Dark Souls, but games press now insists on comparing anything to Dark Souls. Which turns away the majority of people who do not like Dark Souls because of how it plays and/or its difficulty.

The label "Soulslike" operates under a presumed knowledge of either game. Like I said before, assuming I know nothing of Hollow Knight and saying to me, "It's like Dark Souls, but with bugs", I would expect a game that plays very similar to Dark Souls. Again, I contend that the core game play mechanics of Hollow Knight and Absolver are nothing like Dark Souls at all. Do you challenge this?

Thanks for all the feedback, years later. I think I may go back and actually revise this; the story of this game is suddenly relevant, and in the bigger of ways it could revive itself- Sloclap has partnered with Sony, and Epic, for SIFU, in the time since 2017's release, and, though between 2019 until now, players have passed the max-rank, and continue to play daily; and as SIFU's announcement hit, every Absolver-might've sees the similarity in style and combat- and, now not so quietly in the background, this game's story actually has gained momentum into possibly a second-chance-multiplayer-alternative-game-mode to... well; SIFU, coming to PS4,5,PC in 202...1(2?)

I hope Sifu is more of what i wanted from Absolver, i'm surprised we still don't really know what the game is, besides fighting, and maybe a death mechanic that reminded me of rogue-likes in a bad way, so i'm very cautious about this.