Being yet another example of a potentially over-saturated multiplayer market, Cliff Bleszinski's 'Lawbreakers' didn't have the stellar debut the Gears of War creator was likely hoping for.
Githyp previously predicted there was every chance Boss Key Productions' new fast-paced multiplayer shooter IP could flop, following dwindling player numbers across its many beta programs. With the game's second open beta seeing a 40% drop in player numbers over its first, the August release - in which would require players to pony up £25 - was likely going to fair much worse.
It should always be expected that a free beta would pull in far more curious players than would actually wind up playing the full version at launch, and when launch is a paid affair, you can expect even less. And Lawbreakers is no exception. Originally planned to be a F2P game made in partnership with long-running F2P portal Nexon, Lawbreakers eventually decided to go with a single transaction method similar to best-case scenario Overwatch.
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On launch yesterday, the game topped out at 3k concurrent players on Steam, debuting outside Steam's Top 100 Most Played Games list. On launch day for a big-budget multiplayer shooter with the daddy of Unreal Tournament at its helm, that's a pretty disappointing effort. For a rough comparison, the closest and recently released competitor, Paladins, sits at 13,000 concurrent players right now - but that's a F2P title. Reviews paint a great picture, but it might not be enough to keep this one going.
It's looking like Lawbreakers is going down the same path as Gearbox Software's Battleborn - a P2P team-based shooter that just couldn't hack it in the face of tough competition like Overwatch and a plethora of high-grade F2P shooters. Switching to F2P could work in its favor, but in light of the paying customer, that decision could take some time. Time it likely doesn't have. We can imagine the PS4 version is doing better, however.
