Deep Silver (2013-present)
(Redirected from Deep Silver)
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 Their name represents how much silver franchises have gone deep from them.
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Deep Silver is a German-Austrian video game publisher and a division of Plaion (formerly known as Koch Media). The company is notable for publishing the Dead Island, Metro, and Saints Row franchises.
Deep Silver was established in November 2002 to serve as a publishing label for Koch Media, with their first title being Anarchy Online: The Notum Wars. The company was initially labeled itself as a publishing label for smaller independent developers before Koch Media invested in the gaming industry after the success of Dead Island, such as an acquisition of Volition (of Saints Row fame) in 2011, as well as a license of the Metro franchise from THQ who filed for bankruptcy in 2013. Thus Deep Silver has become the game development division of Koch Media.
In 2018, Koch Media was acquired by Embracer Group (then known as THQ Nordic AB), which saw Deep Silver involved in a property exchange with Embracer's main publisher THQ Nordic in May 2020.
Bad Qualities
- They are heavily bad at handling titles from other companies, as they put out the quality of the original titles:
- Shenmue III didn't improve much of the mechanics from the original titles of the game, repeating many of the same archaic design choices that those games had, which have aged poorly. A lot of the mechanics that made Sega's Shenmue games unique in the early 2000s are now common practices in modern gaming. As a result, Shenmue III is too similar to the older games without many improvements, making the game feel outdated when its selling points are now unimpressive.
- Their Duke Nukem game, Duke Nukem: Critical Mass, was in development hell for a while. The game was supposed to be part of a trilogy and not only for DS, but also for PSP, but the PSP version got canceled, the trilogy never came, and you can see why by just looking at the final result, it lacks the charm and personality of the older Duke Nukem titles.
- When they handled Homefront: The Revolution from Crytek, it was not a sequel, but a reboot, which disappointed actual fans and gamers of the game who wanted to see it after the liberation of San Francisco, along with its weak story and lore.
- They're responsible for ruining Ride to Hell: Retribution, as the game was supposed to be an open-world biker game co-developed by Deep Silver Vienna and Eutechnyx, but instead, they have canceled the original project, due to the closure of the development studio, Deep Silver Vienna. The project has been recreated as a budget linear action-adventure game. During the creation of an actual Ride to Hell, Eutechnyx was only responsible for developing the process. Deep Silver rushed the development of the game, and also planned to release both smaller projects of an upcoming series, which was supposed to be born by Ride to Hell: Retribution. As a result, Ride to Hell: Retribution became one of the worst games of all time. After the abysmal reception, Deep Silver canceled Ride to Hell: Route 666 and the mobile game titled Ride to Hell: Beatdown.
- When they acquired Fishlabs, Galaxy on Fire 3: Manticore was built on a freemium model, introduced more IAPs and a premium currency, and the more features from the prequels on this game were removed. It even requires an Internet connection all the time.
- They got involved in the publishing process of Mighty No. 9, which was a huge Kickstarter failure.
- Recently released Saints Row (2022), not only did the announcement receive a mixed reception from long-time fans who prefer the gritty tone of the first two games and past games' characters like Johnny Gat but when it was released fans went from mixed to negative due to the game being riddled with bugs and glitches, clichéd storyline, and boring and empty open-world.
- They sometimes heavily rush their games, which leads to having many bugs and glitches, poorly-written dialogues, abysmal level designs, and bad mechanics. An example is Saints Row IV which, while still a great game, suffered from a 9-month-rushed development to release before Grand Theft Auto V.
- They sometimes release similar games to older titles. For example, Risen 3 is nothing, but a reskin of Risen 2. None of the elements have improved or refined, and the locations and assets are recycled from Risen 2. However, the main fault goes to Piranha Bytes, who went down after the release of the third Gothic game, who released recently stiff and outdated mechanical games.
- They teamed up with Epic Games on a timed exclusivity deal for the PC version of Metro Exodus and Shenmue III on the Epic Games Store. Additionally, the deal was made and announced less than three weeks before the game's release, causing criticism and confusion among critics and fans of the Metro franchise.
- When the infamous Dead Island: Riptide torso controversy happened, they received backlash by using the "deeply sorry" apology.
Good Qualities
- Like THQ Nordic, they sometimes do very well handling titles from defunct companies. Saints Row (the fourth one and Gat Out of Hell) and Metro series are good examples.
- Apart from the Metro and Saints Row series, they published some good games, for example, Wasteland 3, the first Dead Island game and its successor, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Agents of Mayhem, Wasteland 2: Director's Cut, Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse, Iron Harvest, and more.
- Additionally, they released Persona 5 in Europe, one of the greatest anime-styled role-playing games ever.
- In 2021, they revived the developer Free Radical Design (which was folded into Crytek in 2014), bringing back two of the company's founders.
- Also, many gamers who hated Ride to Hell: Retribution hoped that they would ask to revive the original open-world project.
- They were tolerable before 2013.
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