Reviving Player Engagement: Game-Changing Updates (Personal picks from F2P and Paid Games)
In today’s gaming landscape, keeping players engaged with older titles is a significant challenge. Successful live-ops games and “games-as-hobbies” have been around for a while now, some for years, others for a decade. Competing with them is tough, but growing and improving such projects to retain new audiences and entertain the old ones may be even tougher.
A recent case with “Honkai Impact 3rd: Part Two” shows what some games have been attempting to do already for some time. They aim to boost engagement through massive updates, offering fresh takes on user experience, content, and quality of life features. Older and rapidly growing games tend to become too complex and overcomplicated. These updates seek to address such legacy, building hype around the main differences.
In this post, I’ll showcase examples of such games that caught my eye recently.🧐
===== The picks =====
– Dota 2: New Horizons
Bigger map, lots of changes, and the fans were here for it. It’s kind of hilarious how excited community got over this after the first announcement.
– Total War: Warhammer – Mortal Empires & Immortal Empires
Creative Assembly’s strategy of releasing a free combined map update, merging content from all previous games into a grander campaign. Such updates typically go live several months after the game’s release, and yes, it’s as awesome as it sounds.
– Warframe: The Duviri Paradox
This update introduced a lot of new gameplay and content without requiring you to slog through the main game. The devs even said it’s kind of like jumping straight into League of Legends’ ARAM mode in terms of accessibility. But, I’m not sure it worked out that way in the end. 🙂
– No Man’s Sky
It’s kind of an exception, but this game’s comeback story is legendary. It wasn’t just one update; it was a whole bunch that turned things around. And the soundtrack for the update trailers rocks!
– Stardew Valley
Lots of hype since the 1.6 release. It even gained more (happy) players over the last week. 🍒
– ARK: Survival Ascended
The old ARK game received a facelift with better graphics and tech. The reception is controversial.
Notable Mentions: Final Fantasy XIV: Realm Reborn, Hawken: Reborn, Counter-Strike 2
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As we’ve seen, clever updates can make a familiar game feel new and exciting again. But it is tought and risky challenge as well.
By the way, on mobile such update approach is also present (e.g. Gardenscapes, Airport City, War Robots Remastered, Cradle of empires, etc.)
