Undawn is a zombie survival shooter that launched in June 2023 on cell and PC, however I don’t blame you for understanding something about it. Based on Reuters, the sport, which seems to have been on only a few folks’s radar, didn’t carry out effectively for Chinese language conglomerate Tencent, regardless of Oscar-winning actor Will Smith enjoying a significant position in its story.
In a March 21 Reuters report, sources instructed the publication that Tencent’s Undawn has “flopped spectacularly.” The post-apocalyptic zombie shooter allegedly had greater than 300 builders engaged on it and a finances of almost 1 billion yuan (round $140 million). Sadly, in response to Reuters through the analysis agency Appmagic, the sport has solely managed to rake in $287,000 in income. That’s about 0.2 % of the sport’s alleged finances within the span of eight months
There are a number of elements that might have contributed to Undawn’s failure. First, as beforehand talked about, it doesn’t seem to have been marketed sufficient in order that players truly knew about it. Social media posts made after the Reuters story broke are largely folks asking the same question: “Am I the one one who didn’t even know this recreation existed?” Even the final video on the sport’s official YouTube channel was in October 2023, so it doesn’t seem to have gotten that a lot post-launch buzz. The sport at the moment sits at a “blended” score on Steam with 5,535 opinions on the time of writing.
Plus, Undawn is an fascinating title for a zombie recreation—it’s kinda near KNP’s zombie survival recreation Undead and Supermassive Video games’ interactive horror recreation Till Daybreak. Might it have benefited from a extra recognizable title? Possibly, not less than to tell apart it from different well-known undead shooters.
Sadly, not even well-known actor—and notorious slapper—Will Smith might’ve saved this recreation. Smith promoted Undawn on his official YouTube channel in Could 2023, revealing that he additionally performs the lead in its post-apocalyptic zombie story. Based on IGN, Smith performs Trey Jones, a survivor who acts as a information to assist gamers navigate a world 4 years after it’s been decimated by a worldwide catastrophe. However his star energy clearly couldn’t draw a strong playerbase. And within the wake of Undawn’s failure, Tencent is transferring away from large-scale, standalone video games, with the corporate’s chief technique officer James Mitchell telling buyers in the course of the earnings name that it’s turning consideration in direction of informal celebration video games and Genshin Affect-like anime RPGs as a substitute.
“We’re specializing in fewer greater finances video games,” Mitchell mentioned on March 20, in response to Reuters. “Sometimes, we’re searching for to make the largest bets round video games that both iterate on a profitable IP…or video games which can be iterating round confirmed gameplay success inside a distinct segment and taking these to a extra mass market.”
Kotaku has reached out to Tencent for remark.
Based on Reuters, it’s not simply Undawn that’s struggling. Murderer’s Creed Jade, one of many many in-development sneaky-stab video games set in historic China, has reportedly been delayed to 2025 in order that the “lots of of individuals from the group” might get shuffled to the corporate’s just lately launched celebration recreation DreamStar. That is regardless of Tencent investing hundreds of thousands of {dollars} within the franchise in September 2022, changing into one in all Ubisoft’s largest shareholders. It feels like Tencent is making main pivots which will have an effect on its enterprise technique.