Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn, developed by A44 Games with the help of Sweet Baby Inc. and published by Kepler Interactive, lost nearly 70% of its already anemic user base in just over one week since it released.
A screenshot from Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn (2024), A44 Games
Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn released on July 18th and only had a peak concurrent player base of 648. Just over a week since the game released the peak concurrent has declined nearly 70% to just 203 players.
Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn SteamDB charts
It’s not surprising that the game’s player base is quickly shrinking. While the game has “mostly positive” reviews on Steam, the “Most Helpful Review” in the last seven days is negative and tells potential players to avoid the game.
Semi-Literate Ape writes, “This game feels unfinished. The store page describes it as ‘Souls-lite’, and that’s what it is – in the worst possible ways. ‘Lite’ on the build depth and variety. ‘Lite’ on the difficulty. ‘Lite’ on the content and length of the damn game! I completed the main story, including all side quests, all ‘Enki feathers’ and all shrines… in 11.6 hours. I played on normal, so maybe the hard difficulty is more of a challenge, but the big bosses were trivial. Even the final boss fell over pretty quick. And the story is nothing to speak of. Oh, and the game kept crashing for me. Thankfully the game seems to save its state before exiting, even on a crash, so I never lost any progress.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I had some fun. I wouldn’t have spent 11.6 hours on it if there was no fun to be had,” he added. “It’s particularly satisfying to switch between melee and ranged combat relatively fluidly. Or to shoot a suspiciously-well-placed explosive barrel to clear a pack of enemies. But that fails to make up for everything the game lacks.”
Nevertheless, he concluded, “Overall I think this game is criminally undercooked. The concept and world had decent potential, and the combat isn’t terrible either, so given a few more years of development, I could see this game being pretty good. Sadly what we got was just mediocre on almost all levels. I wouldn’t suggest you pay much more than $10 for it.”
Semi-Literate Ape on Steam
The second “Most Helpful Review” also does not recommend the game. Nachidimon states, “The game is not terrible. It looks great and I’ve had no performance issues. However, I can’t recommend it because the balance is simply terrible. The game can’t decide whether it wants to be Assassin’s Creed or a Souls game, so it veers wildly and unexpectedly between difficulties in way that I found persistently irritating.
He continued, “Most of the time the game is Assassin’s Creed, a fun game that requires little technical gaming expertise. In Flintlock, you follow the quest marker, parkour over obstacles that are clearly marked in white or zip through rifts that give you an infinite amount of time to choose your direction. If you wander around, you find resources or hidden treasure chests. The game might be more like God of War, but the writing in Flintlock is so dull that I don’t want to make the comparison. Flintlock’s writing is dull like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is dull.”
“But, from time to time and without warning, the game turns into a Souls-like game,” Nachidimon writes, “The parkour in the Black Powder factory, for example, is not really difficult but if you haven’t fallen to your death 1,000,000 times in Elden Ring to get the Thumbprint Shield, you might not be used to missing your jumps. The game does not prepare you for the first boss fight, for example, which has 3 phases and requires good parrying skills. That’s not a bad thing if the rest of the game had the same vibe. But it doesn’t.”
“I loved the Parade Master fight in Lies of P, it was engaging and taught you about the game you were about to play. I don’t like the swings in difficulty in Flintlock. The combat in its open world is from a different game than the boss combat. And I’m not an impatient player, it took me 2 days to learn to dodge and beat Consort Radahn, and 4 days to learn to kill the Nameless Puppet. But Flintlock doesn’t inspire me to put the time in because the game, as a whole, doesn’t inspire that kind of commitment. If its gameplay were more cohesive or its story more interesting, I might feel differently. Perhaps the devs will retune the game in an update,” he concluded.
Nachidimon on Steam
READ: Sweet Baby Inc. Developed ‘Flintlock: The Siege Of Dawn’ Releases To Abysmal Player Numbers
KabrutusRambo the founder of the Sweet Baby Inc. detected Steam curator list, who added Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn to the list, says the game “is terrible.”
God flintlock is terrible ugh
— Kabrutus (@kabrutusrambo) July 27, 2024
Not only are gamers unimpressed by the game, but the initial anemic player base shows that gamers are not interested in games that have been infected by Sweet Baby Inc. And this game was definitely infected by Sweet Baby Inc. with former A44 COO Audrea Topps Harjo confirming to Edge Magazine that Sweet Baby Inc. CEO Kim Belair worked on the game.
Edge Magazine reported, “For Flintlock, it was Topps Harjo who brought on Kim Belair – the Montreal-based narrative director who has advocated for better representation in stories as a means of bringing new and exciting ideas to games.”
Harjo explained, “She took the wonderful base layer Derek had, the world, and just elevated it.” She added, “You know the difference when there’s a person who’s reflecting at you and it’s true. There’s a certain truth that resonates that can’t be faked. I know some people won’t notice, but the people who are attuned to that, they’ll get it immediately.”
A screenshot from Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn (2024), A44 Games
Harjo noted, “Those gods are almost a symbol of colonialism. They are people who have taken over your agency. What do you do when you wrestle with that structure, to find and gain your own identity? It’s still a game, it’s still gods and guns, but when you look at it from that lens, there’s another layer on top of that, from Nor being a woman of colour. It makes the character and the dynamic even more an echo of reality.”
Hey guys, I added another game to my curator list. The game is called Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn, and as shown in this physical copy of the Edge magazine, it involves Kim Belair (Sweet Baby Inc. CEO).
I have waited a bit before deciding to add this one because a dev from… pic.twitter.com/tXPXyC33Lo
— Kabrutus (@kabrutusrambo) March 20, 2024
Not only was the game confirmed to be infected by Sweet Baby Inc., but former World of Warcraft Team Lead Mark Kern reported that the game was “overrun by woke” and that the main character was initially imagined to be white.
Proof Sweet Baby Inc. ruins games:
SBI game Flintlock by @a44games has been overrun by woke:
“I used to work there. Flintlock was a good project with lots of potential, then it was ruined.”
🧵(Con’t) pic.twitter.com/G1b8NTTBOH
— Grummz (@Grummz) March 21, 2024
He continued, “Before I go further, please note this is rumor from a source that seems very knowledgeable about the studios inner workings. Take that as it is. If others would like to verify, please DM me anon. The CEO and COO at a44 are no longer with the company, but the damage seems to have been done. The good devs at a44, I tell you how to fix it at the end of this thread.”
He then added, “Did you know the protagonist of Flintlock used to be white? When COO (and Casting Director) Andrea Topps Harjo joined the studio, her first actions were to change the character to hire Sweet Baby Inc. and change the main character to a PoC. This marked the beginnings of the problems with the game and studio.”
Did you know the protagonist of Flintlock used to be white?
When COO (and Casting Director) Andrea Topps Harjo joined the studio, her first actions were to change the character to hire Sweet Baby Inc. and change the main character to a PoC.
This marked the beginnings of the… pic.twitter.com/DFBqVh69rE
— Grummz (@Grummz) March 21, 2024
READ: ‘Concord’ Open Beta Fails To Top 2,500 Concurrent Players In First Day
Next, he shared, “Audrea Topps-Harjo is rumored to have used the company’s funds and manpower to power her personal agenda and projects, on initiatives not related to the game or even the studio itself. One such initiative that I found is InclusionFX, a VFX company and advocacy company with shades of Sweet Baby Inc. Here is the bio from the company. She held this position at Flintlock at the same time she ran InclusionFX.”
He added, “I asked and confirmed: ‘Yea, I have witnessed our UI artists making art assets for its website as their sprint tasks.’”
Audrea Topps-Harjo is rumored to have used the company’s funds and manpower to power her personal agenda and projects, on initiatives not related to the game or even the studio itself.
One such initiative that I found is InclusionFX, a VFX company and advocacy company with… pic.twitter.com/4mF19p9A47
— Grummz (@Grummz) March 21, 2024
Kern continued, “Aside from working with Sweet Baby Inc. and making changes to the game, Audrea also directed numerous changes in HR in her role as COO. In 2021, most developers were denied raises, and evaluations were postponed for at least 6 months. Audrea told HR to inform anyone who complained or asked questions that the reasons is ‘Is because I said so.’ She also ordered the HR department to HIDE the salaries of the top execs of the company. HR tried to help, but were unable to get past this. The team was worried about the studio finances. Meanwhile, the new hires and changes to the game resulted in a project where ‘These people know nothing about how a video game is made.’
“After nearly 2 years of these DEI changes at a44, the damage had been done,” he asserted. “At this point the studio was purchased for $175m (an unusually high sum for a small studio, btw) by Kepler Interactive in Sept of 2021, a gaming collective fund whose founder also founded the Kowloon Knights gaming fund. It was at this point that Audrea, the COO, left the company. Perhaps this was the start of a clean-up of the game’s troubles?”
After nearly 2 years of these DEI changes at a44, the damage had been done.
At this point the studio was purchased for $175m (an unusually high sum for a small studio, btw) by Kepler Interactive in Sept of 2021, a gaming collective fund whose founder also founded the Kowloon…
— Grummz (@Grummz) March 21, 2024
Kern then shared, “The state of the game is unknown at this time, but is believed to be in shambles after this 2 year round of DEI changes. As we now know, a44 reached out to Kabrutus to refute SBI’s involvement, saying they are no longer involved and all their changes reversed. But when Kabrutus asked for proof, they refused to speak to him any further.”
He concluded, “Here is my advice to Kepler and the good folks left holding the bag at a44: – You reverted the SBI changes. Good! Announce that you have terminated services with SBI and watch your PR soar. Gamers will flock to you. Don’t try to hide it. – Keep your MC a PoC but don’t tokenize the character. Make it a great character with quality writing, one we can all love. – Remove any sermons or preachiness or anti-white, anti-male racism and sexism from the game if it still remains. Don’t lecture your audience. Embrace the gamer, and they will embrace you. Good luck and my genuine best wishes.”
Here is my advice to Kepler and the good folks left holding the bag at a44:
– You reverted the SBI changes. Good! Announce that you have terminated services with SBI and watch your PR soar. Gamers will flock to you. Don’t try to hide it.
– Keep your MC a PoC but don’t tokenize…
— Grummz (@Grummz) March 21, 2024
Following the game being initially added to the Sweet Baby Inc. detected Steam curator list and Kern’s report about the studio and game being overrun by woke ideology, Senior Operations & Growth Manager for Kepler Interactive Lisy Kane raged on social media.
She wrote on X, “Absolutely fuming, vibrating off the f***ing plane of reality. This piss weak pseudo-journalism that the far-right GG* are taking is so vile. Incredible to see in real time (and closer to home) how wrong Grum**z is and how damaging he and his weird troupe are.”
Lisy Kane on X
What do you make of Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn losing nearly 70% of its player base in just over a week?
