XIII Remake Devs Apologize – But Ignore the Elephant in the Room

Following its release earlier this week, I think it’s pretty safe to say that the highly-anticipated remake of the classic cell-shaded shooter XIII has gone down like a lead balloon with both fans and critics. I mean, you only have to take a look at the Steam reviews (that currently sit at ‘Overwhelmingly Negative) to see just how angry the community is about this game.

While I won’t go into detail over what’s wrong with the remake (there’s plenty of actual reviews and YouTube videos that’ll do that), the bottom line is that despite it seeming like it was harder to get it wrong than right, they still somehow managed to find a way to turn a diamond into a turd.

Well, following an official statement on the developer’s website, Microid’s and PlayMagic have issued a formal apology for the poor state the game is currently in. Will that be enough though? – Well, let’s just say we have our doubts. And largely because their ‘apology’ seemingly ignores one of the biggest criticisms made at this so-called ‘remake’.

XIII Remake Devs Issue an Apology

As part of the post, which you can check out in full here, the team behind the game has said:

“First and foremost, we would like to offer our most sincere apologies for the game’s technical issues. In its present state, XIII does not meet our quality standards and we fully understand players’ frustrations. The pandemic has impacted the game’s production on many levels. Pivoting to home working for the teams has added unexpected delays in the development schedule and the QA process. We hoped we would be able to provide a Day One patch fixing all the issues but the development of this update is taking more time than expected.

We want to assure you that PlayMagic is working hard to solve all the game’s issues. With live monitoring and multiple patches in the upcoming days and weeks, we hope to reach the quality level we all expect for the optimum gaming experience. The first update will be pushed shortly to fix the most urgent issues regarding the controls, frame rate, collisions, rendering and sound”

What Do We Think?

While they have promised to work out and fix the numerous bugs and glitches lurking in the game (despite previously promising that this would be done in a day one patch) it doesn’t address the biggest issue fans have with the XIII remake. Namely, that despite some hints in prior trailers, the developers decided to completely scrap the cell-shaded design that made the original game so eye-catching and iconic.

This, put simply, was a huge mistake and they are now clearly paying the price for not bothering to make this the authentic remake the fans wanted! – Albeit, I will concede that fan service doesn’t always work!

So, while you can buy this remake if you want, I’d personally suggest that for £1.99, the original is simply vastly better (even despite the fact it’s nearly 20-years old). As above, the saddest part is that it was so easy to get the XIII remake right, and so hard to get wrong, but I’ll be damned if the developers still didn’t find a way to achieve the seemingly impossible!

In a nutshell though, unless they release an update that restores the original cell-shaded graphic design, this is going to possibly be one of the biggest flops of 2020!

What do you think? – Let us know in the comments!