Battlebit Remastered launched on Steam two weeks in the past and the $15, 254-player FPS has been a prime vendor on the platform ever since, outperforming a number of big-hitters and even Starfield pre-orders. Why? There is no catch, as PCG’s Morgan Park put it, that is simply quite a lot of (excellent) recreation for the cash. In an age the place it seems like each recreation’s making an attempt to nickel-and-dime you with season passes and cosmetics, that counts.
Now developer SgtOkiDoki has introduced that, within the two weeks since launch, Battlebit Remastered has offered 1,800,000 copies. That positive appears to be like like an in a single day success but it surely had an extended highway right here: Battlebit was first introduced on Steam Greenlight in December 2016, and was the primary mission for a collective of skilled modders.
In a brand new interview with The right way to Market Your Sport, SgtOkiDoki particulars the sluggish strategy of constructing a group across the recreation over time, regularly constructing the hype and setting expectations till, in January 2022, a complete bunch of streamers hopping on a pre-release model noticed its Steam wishlists skyrocketing. Earlier than launch Battlebit had over 800,000 wishlists and, since launch, has hit between 70-80,000 concurrent gamers a day.
One of many extra fascinating nuggets to come back out of SgtOkiDoki’s lookback on the growth interval was how the sport had modified based mostly on viewers notion. As it’s, Battlebit is an indie FPS that strikes like Battlefield, appears to be like like Roblox, and has sure hardcore milsim components. However the latter was as soon as far more pronounced, till the builders realised it simply did not fairly work with the look of the entire thing.
“[Players] have an assumption about your recreation,” mentioned the SgtOkiDoki of older variations. “And if the screenshots don’t match the gameplay you could have an issue. Our recreation performed like Squad however seemed like Roblox. That was a horrible transfer.”
The group seemed on the course Battlebit was getting into, and made the decision. “We needed to decide,” mentioned SgtOkiDoki. “We needed to pull again and make the sport extra open for arcade. It wasn’t a call I loved, however I needed to do it. it turned out it was a very good choice.”
Not all the pieces’s been rosy for Battlebit: the sport’s success has seen it develop into a goal for cheaters and DDOS assaults, with OkiDoki centered on firefighting and hiring new workers to cope with this new scale. However the indie Battlefield is not going wherever and the builders have reassured gamers they’re dedicated to the sport, and including much more bang for the buck than it at present delivers, and can accomplish that “whether or not or not we keep this degree of recognition.”