The Trine series of fantasy platformers is beloved, especially on Steam. Trine 3, however, has longtime fans upset.
In addition to basic mechanical quibbles, many Trine fans think the latest gameāwhich recently emerged from Early Accessāfeels unfinished, with a gaping hole of non-ending that only magic (or DLC) could patch up. In a recent Steam post, Frozenbyte VP Joel Kinnunen explained that this isnāt a scheme to fleece players out of their hard-earned doubloons. Rather, Kinnunen feels like his company bit off more than they could chew, but they still released the best game they could.
āBack in late 2012, we set out to do Trine 3 in full 3Dābigger, badder, better. We took a big risk with the 3D gameplay implementationāit was to be a massive improvement over the previous games in several areas. We have always been ambitious and this time our ambition may have gotten the better of us.ā
āTrine 3: The Artifacts of Power has ended up costing nearly triple that of Trine 2āover 5.4 million USD. We have squeezed everything we could into the game, thereās nothing left on the table. We initially had a much longer story written and more levels planned, but to create what we envisioned, it would have taken at least triple the money, probably up to 15 million USD, which we didnāt realize until too late, and which we didnāt have.ā
āSo we did not intentionally make the game āshortā as many have said in order to make money off of future DLC or whatever. We tried to make something too ambitious, and it ended up financially impossible. What we sold on Early Access was the ārealisticā vision and what we promised is what we have delivered, in our opinion.ā
So, in short, Frozenbyte hasnāt suddenly transformed into the sort of shady developer that, in some cases, Steam users are right to be wary of. Instead, they ran up against a problem that has become increasingly common as small developers have gained the tools and resources necessary to tackle projects of greater scale: too much, too soon. Frozenbyte realizes they might have backed themselves into a corner. Kinnunen wrote:
āAs for the cliffhanger ending and DLCāthere are no plans for a DLC. Continuation of the story is a different matter however, but we have released everything we had and everything we aimed to release since the beginning of the Early Access. The future of the series is now in question, as the feedback, user reviews and poor media attention has caught us by surprise.ā
However, they plan to support the game on the technical side of things (bug fixes, support, etc).
Players were, predictably, saddened by this news. Itās not like they hated Trine 3; they just wanted more of it. It strikes me as a bit odd that Frozenbyte would reply to that criticism by putting the series on deep freeze forever. It could be a financially motivated decision, thoughāin which case this is all just very unfortunate.
Regardless, itās a difficult situation. āFeels unfinishedā is a criticism thatās frequently lobbed at modern games, especially ones that spent their diaper days on Steam Early Access. Frozenbyteās honesty about the situation is refreshing, especially in light of the fact that some Steam developers choose to say nothing at all or, worse, moderate their Steam forums in ways that squelch negative feedback.
Itās never fun to watch a beloved series fall on hard times, though. And, explanations aside, Trine 3ās brevity and ending (or lack thereof) still have players feeling like they got an unfinished game. Thatās no good. Hereās hoping Trineās developers turn things around.
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