TLDR; Wonderfully original real time strategy game with no lobby browser. Opinion: game flopped because nobody who would give the game a chance was allowed to find matches to play.
Let's talk Legends. In concept, the game is brilliant: a symmetrical RTS with an asymmetrical campaign/PVE element that places you, the commander, in the middle of the action. The restriction on your POV is made up for by your teammates, giving each player a specific role to play between builder, jungler, mob grinder, and offensive coordinator (or the like). Pair this dynamic with a lovely voxel Minecraft-style world, familiar unit faces, and the creative nonsense that ensues when placing freedom of building into the player's hands, and you've got yourself an incredible game. This is Minecraft the RTS.
The REAL TIME STRATEGY GAME, Microsoft.
See, the best way to enjoy Legends, as with all competitive real time strategy games, is versus other humans. The thrill of competition will allow the most avid fans to look past sloppy mouse controls (present here), inconvenient building placement mechanics (here), lack of updates (here, after just 9 months mind you) Even the least well-known games of similar genre always have a dedicated smaller player base thanks to the comfort of being able to boot up the game and slide on in to whatever few people are hosting a game.
UNLESS YOU CAN'T SEE WHO'S PLAYING?!?!
This game has NO LOBBY BROWSER SYSTEM. No way to even see what options are available to you when you hit that multiplayer button. There is no way to communicate to other players that you are here and ready to rumble. Even in its heyday by launch, there were massive wait times while the powers that be queued players into isolated random rooms, leaving them constantly wondering what the heck the other 5000 (peak at launch) players were possibly doing and denying them the option to simply set one up themselves. In my opinion, this singlehandedly killed the game, denying fans a chance to even try to play. Even Steam doesn't know what to make of the absence of this genre staple, with the RTS tag being towards the bottom of the list, just above... psychological horror? ...Right then.
My theory is that somebody at Microsoft hard stopped any form of free communication in this game in the name of the young target audience that Minecraft draws. Hence why the game did not launch with any in-game comms (bruh), but seriously? There are over 1000 item names in Minecraft, make a lobby browser with titles being just one of those to stop people from having lobbies called "morning oak wood" or "Steve's meat." Ironically, it was never the innocent 12-year-olds of the internet that the game behind the IP was going to appeal to anyways.
I knew exactly what kind of game I pre-ordered, and I desperately love it. The other reviews that narrowmindedly complain about the gameplay loop of an RTS campaign clearly did not. I am vastly disappointed that I do not have 10s or 100s of hours in this game because it was simply not worth my time to sit in a random room that may never fill with no way to check if anyone else in the world was playing versus. If the one dev keeping the servers alive ever reads this, please consider lobbying for a lobby browser in the game. Until then, I hope all you buyers have friends that love this game's concept as much as I do, because they are the only people you will ever play with.
Review is positive because many current negative reviews are undeserved and will more than make up for the negative this review should be. May the creative minds behind this game one day get their chance in the spotlight without being hindered by corpos.
