Released on March 3rd on Steam, Team Ninja's Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty has since garnered mixed reviews at best with a more recent trend towards overwhelming negativity. The reason isn't the quality of the game, with the console versions receiving very good reviews, but the many issues that still plague the PC version months after release: every negative Steam review I've seen points to some performance issues, with the latest summing up a collective sentiment of "No". Worth your money on PC.
Team Ninja's usual approach to public communications hasn't helped, but now the studio has posted the first in what is supposed to be an ongoing series of letters from the director, written by director and producer Masakazu Hirayama. . The letter mostly outlines new content coming to the game, offering a roadmap for free and paid DLC additions through December. Probably the most notable free items are a new boss rush mode, as well as teaming up with Nioh and Lies of P, but the core new items are all in the two paid packages."We cannot talk about the future without talking about the past and the current difficulties in the game," Hirayama said. We apologize for the inconvenience it has caused to everyone playing the PC version of Wo Long since its release. I can assure you that the development team has read every report posted on various bulletin boards, social channels and our customer support department, and we are placing it on top priority in optimization and bug fixing. .”
Well, though Hirayama then makes an odd point about PC as a platform, which, while correct, isn't a very good justification for a studio for Team Ninja's resources and experience shipping a lousy PC port:
"However, there are many combinations of PC environments in every home, and as our team continues to expand the environments in which the game is scanned post-launch, it will take time to properly replicate and fix the problems," said Hirayama. I promise we will continue to make improvements so you can play with peace of mind as soon as possible. We apologize for the delay.
So... sorry about the bad port, and sorry, but you're going to have to wait much longer for the fixes. This would probably be better if it wasn't said right after the monthly DLCs are announced, because it makes you think about priorities. Obviously, the base version of this game doesn't work very well for a large number of PC gamers, who paid good money for it, and one has to wonder what value any additional content could bring while that's still the case.
Team Ninja has at least acknowledged the problem, but this seems like a poor showing from one of Japan's premiere action game studios. I've played Nioh on PC and it was great, so it's not like it didn't do well on PC before, the problem is less that the game starts up in a bad state than it appears like it's in no rush to fix it. Apologies and roadmaps are all well and good, but some people just want to play the game they bought without technical issues ruining the experience.