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remanutd

Member
Oct 29, 2017
1,350
New York
I don't think the first two were? The third was though, but that was partly because it was semi-cancelled due to the ridiculously bad timing of the Japan tsunami.
The first 2 werent. But the third yes, very bad timing and i dont think that was what the majority of motorstorm fans wanted the franchise to go after the superb pacific rift.
 

Schaft0620

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
838
This is going to sound stupid but, if OnRush got a Battle Royal mode it would have exploded. The game should not have had a $60 MSRP.
 

remanutd

Member
Oct 29, 2017
1,350
New York
Motorstorm Apocalypse was maybe to extreme for many. They should have improved on what made Motorstorm 2 so good. Launch was also around the Japan tsunami and because of that - as far as I know - the game didn't even launch in Japan (Asia?).

A redifined Motorstorm with new/improved engine after Driveclub had good chances to be a success. Or simply a Driveclub 2. The DLC for Driveclub shows very good how much potential the franchise had.
I keep saying this! I dont think Apocalypse is what the majority of Motorstorm fans wanted to see next after the Greatest Brutal Off road racer game "Pacific Rift" and the launch timing of Apocalypse couldnt have been worse. A new Motorstorm game could do very well right now. There is absolutely nothing like it on the ps4. I want that adrenaline feeling back!!!
 
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xrnzaaas

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
4,125
Maybe Onrush should be a Games With Gold or PSN Free game to boost the online user base
I still think the main problem was making the game for a largely non-existant audience, but it doesn't change the fact that the whole situation was handled poorly. The beta wasn't a good demo and they also should've slashed the prices quickly just like Bethesda had for Dishonored 2 and Prey when they flopped (and they weren't even games that had to heavily rely on building a userbase).
 

cooldawn

Member
Oct 28, 2017
2,448
Sad news.

I've paid and played games developed by Evolution Studios since 2001. Started with World Rally Championship all the way through the MotorStorm series and DriveClub. Basically nearly all of their games. WRC II Extreme, MotorStorm Pacific Rift and DriveClub being stand-out titles for me.

I just wonder if Yoshida could give them a call and just ask...'Where do you want to go?'.

I hope it all works out for them because talent of this nature needs to be doing what they love the most.

Good luck guys/gals.

EDIT: or it would be nice for PlayGround Games to lend a hand.
 

DirtyLarry

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,112
Damn, had no idea it had already dropped to $39.99 or else I would have picked it up.
Now though definitely hesitant to do so as the whole selling point of the game was the promise of what it could eventually be, not what it was. And I do think that is ultimately what really hurt it.
Best of luck to everyone affected, especially Rushy. Always came off as an incredibly good person to me.
 
Oct 25, 2017
1,957
Germany
Maybe Onrush should be a Games With Gold or PSN Free game to boost the online user base
I agree with this. However, it could not have kept player numbers for very long, the way the game is (from what I've seen and heard).

Rocket League would have bombed like Onrush, maybe worse without the day-1 free-with-PS+ thing, but people loved Rocket League for it's high skill ceiling and sense of getting better ever so slightly. OnRush is just refreshing dumb fun and doesn't seem to offer this long-term sense of mastery.

What I mean is, for it to have been the next Rocket League, the gameplay would have needed to be more complex and easy-to-learn/hard-to-master. Evo could not have fed off cosmetic microtransactions with a PS+/GWG deal as long as Psyonix did (still does actually) from Rocket League.
 

Dphex

Member
Oct 27, 2017
12,811
Cologne, Germany
I still think the main problem was making the game for a largely non-existant audience, but it doesn't change the fact that the whole situation was handled poorly. The beta wasn't a good demo and they also should've slashed the prices quickly just like Bethesda had for Dishonored 2 and Prey when they flopped (and they weren't even games that had to heavily rely on building a userbase).

they slashed the price quickly enough, it´s still on sale on PSN for half the price with PS Plus. i think the train left the station already, even if it is going on sale for 20 bucks, not many people will bite. the market changed fundamentally in the last years and it´s not the kind of game which gets a huge userbase.

i hate to say it but the game seemed doomed from the get go when people caught wind that it isn´t a traditional racer like Motorstorm the whole thing was completely uninteresting for many people. the beta further sealed the deal for many to say "no, not for me". it was one of those times a beta did more harm than good and the game never recovered from this.
 

jerf

Member
Nov 1, 2017
6,235
What a shame. I admit I initially overlooked the OnRush, but man it is sooo good. sogood.gif.

best of luck to the devs . You all could use some good luck for a change.
 

Deleted member 25108

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 29, 2017
2,877
It sucks, but pretty much everyone told them from the moment they first announced it wouldn't be a traditional racing game.

Not having at least one racing orienated mode after so many months of feedback is one of the most pigheaded decisions I've seen this gen.

I think even the promise of one, as post launch DLC would have been enough.
 
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Oct 29, 2017
5,354
Honestly, never even heard of OnRush until the podcasts I listened to started talking about it when it released. And even then it wasn't gushing praise.

Terrible for the job losses, though. They're a very talented studio.
 

Bufbaf

Don't F5!
Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,654
Hamburg, Germany
I love Driveclub but honestly, I could see Onrush disappointing in sales from miles away :/ Super sorry for the guys, ofc especially Rushy. Is he still here with us?
 

RM8

Member
Oct 28, 2017
7,902
JP
I just don't understand why arcade racers are not popular. They're fun, action packed games that are great for multiplayer.
 

IIFloodyII

Member
Oct 26, 2017
23,973
1000 in UK wich is one of the biggest markets for racing games is not good
Dont know why the game bombed btw. It has arcade racing with pretty unique modes and the reviews were decent also. Not great but decent. So it should have done fine really. Not realy good but not this 1000 copies bomb. Marketing wasnt good maybe? People didnt really know what the games was?
Released at a shitty time (really hot weather), had pretty much zero marketing and the price probably didn't help.
 

xxbrothawizxx

Member
Nov 1, 2017
1,233
Gainesville, FL
Onrush feels like it came and went without any fanfare at all.

With so many options in the genre, it's not surprising the title got buried.

Meanwhile, Switch owners be like, "Please, give us anything that isn't a mobile port."
 

Dphex

Member
Oct 27, 2017
12,811
Cologne, Germany
It sucks, but pretty much everyone told them from the moment they first announced it wouldn't be a traditional racing game.

Not having at least one racing orienated mode after so many months of feedback is one of the most pigheaded decisions I've seen this gen.

I think even the promise of one, as post launch DLC would have been enough.

the tracks simply aren´t made for racing, they are designed as some kind of endless "track arenas", pure racing would be very boring in this game. it just isn´t made for that.

With so many options in the genre, it's not surprising the title got buried.

which options exactly? gimme a break, arcade style fun car games aren´t a thing anymore, there is nothing (!) like Onrush on the market.
 

Gestault

Member
Oct 26, 2017
13,358
onrushaccolades.jpg


+Easy Allies 9/10. so yeah, it did well review wise

I think a lot of it was just due to the style not clicking with some reviewers, but it's worth recognizing that the meta-average settled around 76. Not terrible in any sense, but not glowing in the way you'd like for a new series. Which seeing the results behind the scenes, is really frustrating.

If some of the changes they got live pretty quickly after launch had been in place for the first stage of the public beta, I'd like to think this could have played out differently.
 
Oct 25, 2017
11,701
United Kingdom
I just don't understand why arcade racers are not popular. They're fun, action packed games that are great for multiplayer.

Yeah it's weird and OnRush has been so much fun to play. It's sad that more people didn't give it a chance.

It reviewed great, people that did pick it up have been having a blast, I guess it's just one of those really good games that just didn't sell for various reasons.

Thankfully it has a solid, fun single player, so I can keep playing if they decide to kill the online servers.
 

Deleted member 25108

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 29, 2017
2,877
the tracks simply aren´t made for racing, they are designed as some kind of endless "track arenas", pure racing would be very boring in this game. it just isn´t made for that.

.

Well, sorry, someone should of been brave enough to say "umm maybe we shouldn't be ditching traditional racing entirely".

The moment the game was revealed, people were asking where the race mode was. It was pigheaded to not throw them a bone.
 

Venom.

Member
Oct 26, 2017
424
London
1000 copies?! Ouch!

I wasn't a fan of the demo and kind of feared the worst when the price of the game plummeted a couple of weeks after launch but I didn't think it had sold that badly.

To be fair though, I don't really recall any marketing for the game. There were a few preview pieces but I don't think I saw much about the game?

This is a multi-format game (PS4 & XBO) that reviewed quite well (75%ish Metacritic) from a company that has a great racing heritage (Motorstorm). To only sell 1000 physical copies is absolutely shocking. I don't think it can be regarded as a reflection of the game's quality but has everything to do with the marketing budget, PR, etc and how much the publisher pushed it. A real shame.


I wish Sony would have put them on a Forza Horizon competitor instead of Driveclub. I love Driveclub but they didn't separate it enough from Gran Turismo, certainly from a visual standpoint. A Motorstorm reboot or a new IP using Horizon's model would probably have sold quite a bit better. Although Driveclub was probably hurt by the delays and the launch issues more than anything.

That sounds like a good idea. Gran Turismo & Forza is for the petrolhead's but open world racing like Forza Horizon i think is much more accessible to the masses. I'd have loved to have seen them make an equivalent game for PlayStation. As the team was totally separate from Polyphony Digital it would have had its own unique flavour, the amazing feel of Motorstorm races in an open world!
 

Deleted member 25108

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 29, 2017
2,877
They created a game that only appealed to a fraction of arcade racing fans. It was bound to fail.

They wanted to make a racing Overwatch.


But Overwatch is still a first person shooter. Even if you don't like it's approach, fans of shooters have something to latch on to.

Onrush is a racing game, with no hooks for someone into traditional racing games. You could have turned it into a third person speedrunners mod and lost none of the gameplay. For every one person they gained with that approach, they lost 5.
 

Mr.Deadshot

Member
Oct 27, 2017
20,285
There is absolutely nothing like it on the ps4. I want the adrenaline feeling back!!!
There is actually nothing like Motorstorm on any console nowadays. Motorstorm was fantastic with it's different vehicles and different routes on the same courses and the overall brutality and adrenaline. Outstanding games.
 

Huey

Member
Oct 27, 2017
13,185
Motorstorm Apocalypse was maybe to extreme for many. They should have improved on what made Motorstorm 2 so good. Launch was also around the Japan tsunami and because of that - as far as I know - the game didn't even launch in Japan (Asia?).

Totally agree with this - Apocalypse was a first big misstep. Reduced focus on interesting track layouts with an increased focus on spectacle, a hit to the visuals (probably to accommodate the increased complexity of all the deforming geometry), a totally useless story mode with awful hand drawn cutscenes (though that was very late gen Sony so probably not Evo's fault) - all these things left a sour taste coming off the arguably-greatest-arcade-racer-of-gen-7, Pacific Rift.

Having said that, Pacific Rift and Driveclub are both totally outstanding, I will enormously miss this team :(
 

Kraken3dfx

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,945
Denver, CO
Being a huge Motorstorm fan during the PS3 era, I was super excited about OnRush the first time I saw it, especially when I heard Rushy's team was working on it, but the minute they clarified what the game actually was, it was pretty much like all the air left my sails for it. I would have been on board Day One for even a spiritual successor to Motorstorm, but this is not that, and it's not anything I see myself getting excited for unfortunately. I feel bad that they were able to get a foothold in the gaming community with it, hopefully they land on their feet somewhere else and make something even better.
 
Oct 25, 2017
11,701
United Kingdom
i am afraid this will be a thing in the coming weeks...it would really suck. i imagine they will launch ranked mode, see the player numbers and pull the plug for good.

Maybe they will still release the PC version at a lower price and keep the game at a lower price on console to boost the numbers a bit, to keep it going for longer.

Fingers crossed anyway.
 

Hawk269

Member
Oct 26, 2017
6,043
I am a racing game fan and pretty much like all types of racing games and this game just did not click with me at all. I really disliked the in-between racing dialogue they had going on and like others have said, it just did not seem like a well put thought out game.
 

Shaneus

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,898
Badly, at least in part because it was a bad game.


Wikipedia is your friend.


Sure. But that doesn't change the fact that OnRush was never planned as a game with a "traditional racing mode". Asking "what were they thinking" when they decided to not add a mode like that to a vehicular combat game is the same as complaining about Street Fighter not having a beat 'em up mode.
That's the best analogy I've heard regarding this.
 

impact

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
5,380
Tampa
They weren't going to build DriveClub 2 from scratch in two years, just not realistic. I would have loved that too, but obviously not what Codemasters bought them for. That would have required Sony to keep them and let them build on what they'd accomplished.

But all this tech they've built up from scratch could have let them build it next and then that two years seems reasonable.
Which is fine, but blaming the fans for this isn't right. We're not here to support experiments. I'd just like some solid driving with cars, nice graphics and physics that are not too hard to master like GT/FM. They didn't deliver that with Onrush so I didn't see any reason to buy it even on the PSN sale.

I did buy Driveclub Bikes on the sale though!
 

remanutd

Member
Oct 29, 2017
1,350
New York
There is actually nothing like Motorstorm on any console nowadays. Motorstorm was fantastic with it's different vehicles and different routes on the same courses and the overall brutality and adrenaline. Outstanding games.
Well, i said ps4 because i dont own any other console :( anyways Motorstorm Pacific Rift ranks among my top 5 ps3 games of all time. And Arctic Edge ranks among my top 5 psp games of all time, heck now that i think about Arctic Edge would have been a better successor to Pacific Rift than Apocalypse was.
 

Shaneus

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,898
Switch Horizon with DC, Gotham, and GRID. Forza Horizon is in no way more sim-like than GRID or Project Gotham.
Except for the fact that you can upgrade individual parts in cars, tune, turn about 15 assists on or off... none of which you could do in GRID or DC. Arcade by definition is jump-in-and-play. When you have that many customisation and gameplay-affecting options before you even drive the car, it's not arcade.

In a literal sense, think about actual reavers in arcades like Daytona, Sega Rally and Ridge Racer. You select a car, a track and manual/auto gears and that's it. What options are there in FH?
forzah3difficulty.png

No arcade racer in any sense has that level of customisation.
 

Shaneus

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,898
It sucks, but pretty much everyone told them from the moment they first announced it wouldn't be a traditional racing game.

Not having at least one racing orienated mode after so many months of feedback is one of the most pigheaded decisions I've seen this gen.

I think even the promise of one, as post launch DLC would have been enough.
It's not that it's missing a traditional racing mode. If it had that, but still had the same review scores how many more people would have picked it up? There are more people in this thread saying "Wait, this released?" or "Would've bought but too expensive" than "Should've had an racing mode".

That's purely marketing and nothing else.


I still don't get the pricing of the game... it was as much as other games Codies do, but they have fucking massive licenses attached *and* people know what they're getting.
 

riverfr0zen

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,165
Manhattan, New York
This is going to sound stupid but, if OnRush got a Battle Royal mode it would have exploded. The game should not have had a $60 MSRP.

That's pretty much what Switch mode is though, just with teams.

Rocket League would have bombed like Onrush, maybe worse without the day-1 free-with-PS+ thing, but people loved Rocket League for it's high skill ceiling and sense of getting better ever so slightly. OnRush is just refreshing dumb fun and doesn't seem to offer this long-term sense of mastery.

What I mean is, for it to have been the next Rocket League, the gameplay would have needed to be more complex and easy-to-learn/hard-to-master. Evo could not have fed off cosmetic microtransactions with a PS+/GWG deal as long as Psyonix did (still does actually) from Rocket League.

I agree with you that it should have been a day-1 free on PS+ thing, because I see so much parallel between the type of game this is and RL. Completely disagree about "just refreshing dumb fun" though. Keep hearing people saying that but it's not what I hear from anyone who has played the game more than a first couple of rounds. There *is* a lot of depth, and it provides ample room to build up your skills. A level 40 player will not stand up to a level 100 player. Hell even last night I was being tested as a level ~180 player going up against a level ~300 player.

That it's "just dumb fun" is patently false and very undeserving. I can see why people may reach the conclusion after just a few rounds, because the depth is not immediately apparent. It only starts sinking in once you get over the "wowness" of insane cars jumping all over each other and begin to get a feel for the underlying physics model and exploiting the nature of the different vehicles and powers.

Onrush may have failed for many reasons, but it's not because it was lacking as a game in and of itself.
 
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Rodelero

Member
Oct 27, 2017
11,531
Except for the fact that you can upgrade individual parts in cars, tune, turn about 15 assists on or off... none of which you could do in GRID or DC. Arcade by definition is jump-in-and-play. When you have that many customisation and gameplay-affecting options before you even drive the car, it's not arcade.

In a literal sense, think about actual reavers in arcades like Daytona, Sega Rally and Ridge Racer. You select a car, a track and manual/auto gears and that's it. What options are there in FH?

No arcade racer in any sense has that level of customisation.

Thanks for this, the whole tuning and upgrade side of it had somehow slipped my mind. Forza Horizon is an open world driving sim. It's not quite as heavy on the sim side of things as Forza Motorsport, but it's actually pretty close. The fact it's jam packed with non-track racing activities doesn't really change that.

Ultimately, it kind of feels like the arcade racer is almost dead at this point, at least until you go to the complete extremes with Mario Kart. As much as OnRush was obviously doomed for a dozen reasons, no-one seems to know how to succeed in this sub-genre any more. The worst thing is that while I think back on various arcade racing games I've really liked over the past decade or so (Burnout Paradise, GRID, Blur, Motorstorm) I'm not sure a new version of those would actually find success. It feels like it should be kinda easy, especially given the lack of competition, but game after game is falling flat right now.
 
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Oct 27, 2017
822
Before I start with how callous and unusually Codemasters has handled Evo, more generally I'm getting the impression that Codemasters is more content with developing games than marketing them to any acceptable level. Last year a similar pattern and fate was met for Dirt 4 where the space between reveal to release was so short and even less was shown in between the two which led to a bunch of folks not even conscious of its existence when it eventually released, people who otherwise followed the franchise. Later, it clearly underperformed and had a minuscule OT at neogaf despite rather strong critical reception.

This was all for an established franchise with past success, yet Codemasters committed all those exact errors with this, a brand new IP, which it self has much to establish for itself. Then, on top of that, it had the burden of converting skeptics based on its departure from conventional racing, failing to give it any time to change people's minds. Back in late February, there was no live, uncut gameplay revealed in any form yet, so close to release, and I recall posting in the main thread before the OT that it was baffling that so little was shared so close to release. The marketing, instead, was instead decided on a 3 month flurry of gameplay and information leading up to release. In short, the marketing and pace of information released was far too slow and limited for a new IP and it totally shot the game in the foot, and the results are clear. They approached the marketing for this game like Fallout 4 or RDR 2, leaving the gameplay late, without recognizing that new IPs need far more exposure than established and high profile franchises like that, perhaps overestimating the amount of hype that could be generated by the Evolution name and the prospect of them revisiting their pure arcade racing roots.

It's already been covered by others here but I'll reiterate how fucked up Codemasters treated Evo here and the ending of this chapter between the two is quite tragic. From where they started, rescuing Evolution from a certain death, to becoming their executioner, within two years. Seriously, what was the thinking from the Codies? It's clear Evo was handed a limited budget, an even more limited amount of marketing muscle, handed a reveal to release window of less than a year, and then effectively closed them down and stomped out their independence at the first hint of failure. It seems so poorly conceived.

I also don't buy that the timing was that key to its failure, though it definitely raised the odds. Vampyr, released on the same exact day, sold 500k within a few weeks.

Well there is is :(

I'm really pissed off at CM. What a way to support EVO ;_;

The game is fantastic and it's a real shame it didn't sell well. Gamers who like arcaderacers should have bought this instead of ' I'll wait for a pricedrop' attitude.

Gamers are always screaming they want new experiences, but fuck that.

Always when racing games try to do something new and try to shake up the genre it's game over, because apparently nobody buys these games and at the same time people keep telling ' try something new '.

So my most beloved genre lost one hell of a great game today.

Always remember...
# BLUR
# Split/Second
# Motorstorm
# OnRush

I was afraid it would turn out this way, but it has.

So I guess the next dev won't take chances and we don't ever see inventive racers for years to come.

Anyways, thanks for the great game EVO. I really love it and hate the fact that it turned out this way. Yeah I'm really sad now.

I'd like to single this post out because it hits on something that I've thought for a while about such gamers who are often clamouring for innovation in games. Most of these people, either on Era or on other such dedicated circles, simply don't walk the walk on this front. They loudly proclaim their love and hunger for new experiences, implying how unconditionally they are ready to sink their teeth into them, but at the first sign of trouble or unwelcome to their expectation, start raising obstacles, setting conditions for their purchase and a host of reasons NOT to buy something ex. 'too expensive' 'no racing equals no buy' 'metacritic too low' 'not a new motorstorm?.'

That is reasonable.

I was discussing (getting angry) in the PCG Era discord this subject.

People have been talking down arcade racers for years. People want crashing they said, people want boosting they said. Destruction, not racing should be the focus of the genre.

So Evo stepped up, made a game that unashamedly said in the intro that it isn't a racing game.

Those people who have been shouting loudly that the racing genre should change to suit them went out in their droves and proven their insatiable appetite for not racing by....not buying it.

Thanks for undermining a genre and destroying a studio guys.

I take no pleasure in stating the Hopefully obvious: make racing the heart of a racing game. The moment OnRush was announced as a not racer, it turned off the racing gamers and the crowd who said "but we want this" clearly don't exist in any numbers.

The conclusion to be drawn from these posts is that the state of the racing audience is such that those who are demanding a fresh, less realistic approach have, in reality, an only passing and marginal interest in such experiences and are likely only there for a bonafide success, not one that is slightly short of the mark no matter how much short that might be, below 80 metacritic or another criteria they judge by. This excludes the alienation of the racing gaming faithful who seem to be quite exact and rigid in the kind of racing they want, a kind which is quite traditional and then naturally would want the standard racing, with at best indifference or general opposition to deviations from that core of racing lines, careful cornering, A to B racing, perfecting lap times etc. that's already been done over and over again.
 

Effect

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,945
Sucks that they were let go. I had no belief that OnRush would have been a success though the type of game it was.I didn't know who they were appealing to with it. I don't recall any advertising for it as well.
 
Oct 27, 2017
515
Well, if this game winds up like the Dirt games do on PSN (constantly on sale for about $8-15), I hope more folks will give it a chance.

There's still a pretty active base of players, and it's honestly a blast. No, it's not a traditional racer, but I'd still reach for it ahead of a game like The Crew 2 any day.

Also, I've never seen anyone use the post game chat in such a manic, rapid fashion as I did when I played a match with our own SunhiLegend this morning.