Let’s try this again:
See, I want to believe this, but the wording is suspiciously specific here.The phrase “it did not necessarily meet the needs of all new players”, leads me to believe that you do not want to apologise. In my personal opinion, the company acted with a devil-may-care attitude that screwed over new players, adding another edition to the already-complicated editions chart, all the while ignoring any evidence that it was bad for the game, in the hopes that it’d all work itself out in the end. Everyone in this thread, on Reddit, on Bluesky, and on Twitter (and yes, i’m still calling it Twitter), said this was a bad idea from day one, four and half months ago. The evidence presented to us gives the impression that the company ignored the userbase’s pleas for the sakes of monetary gain.
There’s purpose behind that set of decisions, and it was not for the benefit of new players, that we were all certain of, despite repeated assurances.
Giving the game away for free is, in my eyes, a last-ditch attempt by the company at confusing customers and enacting FOMO so they have to buy the rest of the games’ parts later on. It goes against the words written later in that very post of listening to feedback. If you were sincere with that goal, then this edition would’ve been delisted without the promotion. But, as it stands, it comes off as one final opportunity to lock players into a dead-end path of purchasing. I am glad this edition is being removed, but do not mistake that for me being happy about the situation, or accepting of past company behaviour. There is a lot of blame being downplayed here within that post.
What annoys me the most about this situation is that this rings so hollow because it took so long to listen to player feedback (and I suspect that it was less to do with us changing your mind, and more to do with the edition not selling well). It took 132 days to be precise. That’s not a length of time that speaks to me as if the company that acts in our interests. The overwhelming amount of negative feedback should’ve changed your minds within the first week, but instead, the company decided to trust the sales numbers, players be damned.
I am…unhappy CombatGlue. I’m a guy who wants to enjoy your game, but can’t anymore because I’m scared of whatever scheme will come out next to annoy everyone, to put it mildly.
Once again, thank you for removing the Sapienza Edition, and please, for all our sanity, try and not do this sort of thing again. It infuriates your veteran players, confuses new players to no end, and, as you might’ve seen from a past version of this post, makes me personally angry.
To end on a somewhat constructive note, might I suggest what the editions should be changed to in the future:
This allows for free players to still experience the game, and I wouldn’t even mind if Paris was included in the FSP, that’d be an outright good thing, as it’d be a taster of the full experience.
The Standard edition should just include all the story missions from 2016, 2, 3. New York and Haven island are actually necessary for the story, as much as I dislike the retcon to Grey’s character from the comics.
And finally, the Deluxe edition should just contain everything else; 7DS, trinity pack, deluxe pack, and maybe even the freelancer cosmetics.
The Part One edition should be removed in my view, as it serves no other purpose than to confuse, and to make the game look cheaper on Steam when you see it in the drop-down. It’s the kind of dark pattern behaviour I’d expect from FunPlay games to make use of.
I hope the company can improve instead of giving the illusion of such actions.