There's a massive Warhammer 40,000 game currently in Early Access, and soon it will launch fully on PC and console.
Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade has moved into the realms of Free-to-play. The move is not all that surprising given the game’s struggled to truly establish itself as a powerhouse in the multiplayer space.
Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade has a long history of changes, both staff and development wise. There’s a whole different subject to cover in how Eternal Crusade was originally pitched through crowd funding. Promises may have been broken, the product may have been changed, but there’s still plenty to talk about.
Is anyone surprised anymore when it comes to Games Workshop IPs? Every single game that has the Warhammer tag comes with a justifiable amount of skepticism. There are certainly titles that do stand up and are positive additions to the franchise (Warhammer: Total War, Dawn of War, etc.), but there are countless others that fall well below expectations.
The one positive I will give to Eternal Crusade is that it isn't a terrible game. It's okay. It has it's problems, but it can also be fun. Given the development, delays and everything else surrounding Eternal Crusade, I don't see how anyone could be surprised by this though.
Delays usually work in favor of a games quality. Even terrible games would have been worse if they had been released with more unfinished aspects.
I think it was the fact that the delays were also accompanied by significant changes in the direction of the game. So, I agree with you, but the context of these delays in particular, speak to overall issues surrounding this game from the get-go.
"Unfinished" is a word you will find often associated with Eternal Crusade. Despite a lengthy development, the Warhammer 40,000 shooter has been released in a questionable condition, and there is something to be said for a few key technical failings of the game. More than a few reviews on Steam are also calling it the "No Man's Sky of Warhammer 40,000" thanks to the massive changes it underwent during development, shifting away from Planetside scale combat to a much more limited battlefield.
