So i was kinda psyched when i heard that Dave Lang's Iron Galaxy was working on a new tittle ( Extinction ) this Giant Ogre slash'em up seems like something right up my alley. Review's are dropping to day and there dropping hard with a 59 metacritic score ( at this moment ). Main gripe seems to be the 60 dollar price tag for a 4 hour game and bland gameplay. I know for my self that i would never buy a 4 hour story experience for 60 bucks, The pricing seems ridicules. 30 sure but 60 seems like a bit to much. Did they under estimate the market ? sure you can ask what you want but at the end of the day nobody is gonna buy a 100 dollar bread. If this would have being priced 25 / 30 ish this would probably get better reviews ? Now they just come over as greedy and even getting bad rep IMO first the Batman port now this ? I don't know if i am still interested in future Iron Galaxy products. What's your 5 cents on this would you buy this for 60 ? let me know ! Is this even a AAA game ??

"Big money Hustlas"

is it really only 4 hours long?

@soulcake: Maybe it was a case of running out of time/ resources and already deciding on a price point with the Publisher?

Off topic, why do you put a space between your question marks but not your periods?

I'm a bit skeptical about the 4 hour length claim. People claimed the campaign of Wolfenstein 2 was like 5 hours long when copies leaked ahead of time. I'm just saying I'll wait until more people have played it before judging the length of it.

@darkvare: review i read said 12

And as for how i feel about 60 dollars, i think it's too much for almost any game. This one looks better than the actual attack on titan games which cost the same so not sure why people are complaining about the price of this and not that. I guess simply because of the license attached. If the game got better reviews would the price make more sense? If so how would they know what the reception would be. We also don't know the development or publishing costs, it's not like games are free to make.

Isn't the larger issue that the game just isn't good?

Like even the Attack on Titan games seems a lot better for giant killing goodness.

O yeah the 4 hour tag is pure speculation at this moment.

I don't think length or cost should really be included in review. The experience should be rated has it is. Yes, there should be mention of the length and cost so people are fully aware. Did Edith Finch last year get knocked down in review scores for length of game?

As for charging $60, I say charge whatever you want. The price will only go down with time. This sounds shity for people who buy it day one vs those of us who wait 3 months and get it at half cost. Those who buy day one get the privilege of being first and have a much smaller chance of having things spoiled for them. I am one who often buys games well after the fact, partly cause I've got endless backlog, and very often I know large parts of the story before I ever start.

@lukeweizer: cause am a weird person.

Who knows on the length but I will say that the videos of the game I've seen make it look pretty one note. Looked like a definite $20-30 indie title...not $60. Length most certainly is something to bring up in a review...reviews are not critiques, they are little purchasing aids (even Jeff has stated this in the past). If a mom or dad is looking for a game and comes across a review he will want to know if he buys a game if its going to get 4-5 hours before it gets tossed into a gamestop used bin or not. Reviews are you tell you the good, bad, and ugly of a game per the review's opinion and length plays into that. Price? Well, its fine to include it but price doesn't effect the experience of a game if you got it for free when even the length can.

I think at some point Iron Galaxy realized they had a dud on their hands but was probably too far into development to re purpose or scrap the project. It would explain the very high price point and lack of marketing... I think they're hoping to recoup their losses and move on ASAP. Of course, this is going to quite alienating to anyone who actually bought the game.

Couple of things.

The Batman port was nearly three years ago. Nobody other than IG, Rocksteady and WB know what went on with that port that made it so bad. They'd previously worked on Batman before with Arkham Origins which while it had some bugs, wan't any buggier than the versions that Rocksteady did in house. Since then, they've received praise for getting Skyrim running on the Switch, continued to develop KI and ported it to PC as well as work on TESO, 7 Days to Die and more.

IG developed Extinction. They did not publish it. The publisher was Modus Games with Maximum Games having something to do with it as well. I don't know who Modus are - they seem to be a new company. But the publisher is going to be the one who sets the price or who'll have set target returns that the developer will need to reach.

As for the game - the $60 price tag did keep me from buying it. Had it been $20-30 I would've bought it because it looks like fun for a few hours. The combat, combo system they implemented looks really fun and I like the design of the characters. It doesn't help that they launched it a week before the return of God of War either.

I love Dave Lang and all, but can we just call a duck a duck? The game is shit and $60,- is an outrage. That's really all there is to it. Moving on.

I know it's tough, but it is very important to separate the personality from the products. We all want to believe in Dave Lang and Iron Galaxy, but their track record on things aside from ports is not great, and they clearly made a massive mistake by pricing the game so high. Even if it is longer than 4 hours, it's very hard to justify $60/£45 for a game that doesn't have many hours of singleplayer content or has multiplayer, and getting any kind of negative buzz can be a killer. It's fairly obvious that the project turned out to be a boondoggle, and that's a shame.

If you're going to release a game even though you know it's a dud, why wouldn't you sell the game for a lower price point? You can surely recoup more losses by setting the price point lower and selling to a wider market than sticking to $60 and competing with AAA heavy hitters, and it's a better look for customer relations as well.

@bofooq: I think there are a couple of counterpoints here. The first is that Edith Finch wasn't a $60 game. The second is that reviews are consumer focused, informing purchasing decisions. In that regard it's important that players understand what they are getting for their money. I'm in a position where price and length don't really influence my decisions but for someone who may only be able to get a couple new games a year it might matter more.

I guess for me, I see reviews as a consumer focused piece that ultimately answers the question "Should I spend my time and money on this?" I enjoy critical analysis, retrospectives, deep dives and other writing about games but I feel it's a separate thing from reviews.

From everything I've seen, it seems like the game didn't come together in the end. You know how there lots of stories of games where they had a ton of different things, and in the end, it all came together, but it didn't seem like it was going to at all until the last moment? Yeah, this is the game that didn't. I hope it doesn't hurt anyone, and that there are no layoffs because the game is a dud.