Publisher Microids and developer PlayMagic released a joint statement apologizing to fans for the state of the recently-released XIII remake.
As we made clear in our review of the game, the remake is riddled with glitches, framerate drops, and other technical issues. And while it probably won’t be enough to satisfy a lot of fans who plunked down $50 for the game, Microids and PlayMagic promised that a fix is on the way.
So it’s clear that the two companies are going into full-blown damage control. The game has been hit by both critics (including me) and fans alike. The game is currently receiving an ‘Overwhelmingly Negative’ user rating on Steam.
Microids and PlayMagic joint statement
Here is the full joint statement:
The highly anticipated remake of XIII, awaited by many fans, came out earlier this week. Unfortunately, players expectations have not been met by the launch version and we hear loud and clear the legitimate criticism and disappointment.
First and foremost, we would like to offer our most sincere apologies for the game’s technical issues. In its present state, XIII does not meet our quality standards and we fully understand players’ frustrations. The pandemic has impacted the game’s production on many levels. Pivoting to home working for the teams has added unexpected delays in the development schedule and the QA process. We hoped we would be able to provide a Day One patch fixing all the issues but the development of this update is taking more time than expected.
We want to assure you that PlayMagic is working hard to solve all the game’s issues. With live monitoring and multiple patches in the upcoming days and weeks, we hope to reach the quality level we all expect for the optimum gaming experience. The first update will be pushed shortly to fix the most urgent issues regarding the controls, frame rate, collisions, rendering and sound.
For information about the upcoming patches, please follow this link: https://www.microids.com/xiii-patch-notes/
In addition, we wanted to thank the community for all the feedback. We are reviewing every single comment carefully, passing along the bugs and issues to the development team. Feel free to send us your feedback and questions to: [email protected]
Finally, know that we are working on a detailed road map highlighting the upcoming free additions to the game content like new levels, weapons, skins and modes for the local multiplayer.
We are aiming to please all the XIII fans and we’ll work relentlessly to achieve our goal.
My Take
XIII is a classic, so to see it in the state that it’s currently in is a real shame. It also created a bit of an ethical dilemma for me. I could either hold my review until the promised patch or publish it. As the editor-in-chief of the site, I chose to publish the review.
The reasoning behind that decision is straightforward. Microids released a product, people bought it, and it remains available for purchase. Our readers and potential buyers deserve to know what they are getting. So we published it knowing that things might change. If the game does get fixed, we’ll update the review and – if appropriate – the score.
