[h2] The "New World" Clone That Inherited the Same Identity Crisis [/h2]
As a long time New World veteran, I decided to try out The Quinfall. The similarities between these two games are absolutely undeniable. For refugees leaving Amazon’s sinking ship, you will feel right at home here, but unfortunately, that is a double edged sword. The Quinfall suffers from the exact same fundamental identity crisis that plagued New World for years, and it is buried under a layer of uncooked jank. I didn't want to give this a flat thumbs down, but without a "Mixed" review option on Steam, I have no choice. There is a framework of a good game attempting to break through here, but it is currently suffocated by rough animations, severe performance optimization issues, and a dated 2010 aesthetic in my humble opinion.
The game is desperately trying to serve two completely conflicting player bases without a clear direction, ultimately alienating both. It markets itself as a massive open world for everyone, attempting to court hardcore, competitive open world PvP groups while simultaneously forcing a deep, sandbox lifeskill loop down the throats of casual players. But it takes more than just PvP activities to make a proper MMO. Amazon couldn't figure that out, whereas World of Warcraft proved that listening to the silent PvE majority (by adding content like Delves) is a massive success. The Quinfall forces these crowds to bump heads in a toxic global chat where defenders dismiss valid criticism because the game is heavily discounted, it being 0.99 cents.
Once you hit Level 50, the game’s core content hits a massive brick wall. The story and quest lines completely vanish (the story is non-existent if I am being honest). If you are here for an immersive RPG journey, you are in the wrong place, and surprisingly, that was the one area New World actually handled better. Endgame PvE here consists entirely of mindlessly grinding open world mobs with brutal, un-tuned level scaling, repeating a tiny handful of dungeons, running around clicking nodes, and farming New World corruption breaches, uh sorry, I mean "Rifts".
[h2] Predatory Monetization [/h2]
My absolute biggest complaint is the predatory monetization of basic inventory space. The community defense of "But dude, the game is practically free, the monetization isn't a big deal" is completely nonsensical. You have to be completely out of your mind to be willing to defend something like this. It does not matter if a game costs $1 or $70. Forcing players to buy premium currency to expand basic inventory slots, and THEN forcing them to pay for item weight reduction on top of it, is a notoriously frustrating and predatory design choice. It completely ruins the game's best feature: its deep gathering and crafting mechanics, which also mimic New World.
A lifeskiller cannot naturally play a sandbox game when basic storage capacity is held hostage behind microtransactions. You CAN play without paying of course, but it's not going to be a pleasant experience unless you have the patience and tolerance of a saint and don't mind playing inventory tetris. And for those of you who say "it's not forced, it's optional", no lol, your BS defense is a classic corporate bootlicking argument that completely ignores how modern sandbox game loops are intentionally designed. The devs are intentionally creating an annoying problem and then sell you the fix. They do the same thing that Fallout 76 does with it's storage problem, and for those who played 76 you know exactly what I'm talking about.
The Quinfall devs purposely set the baseline starting inventory slots and maximum weight capacity incredibly low. Then, they flood the game with hundreds of different types of un-stackable crafting materials, monster drops, raw ores, and equipment pieces, knowing damn well that you're going to struggle with it and be pressured to pay up. If you are running around mining copper, chopping trees for Resinous Hardwood, and gathering lavender, your bag will hit 100% maximum capacity and lock your character down within 10 to 15 minutes of casual play, depending. Saying inventory expansion is "optional" in a crafting MMO is like saying buying a fishing rod is "optional" in a fishing simulator "just use your hands to catch the fish dude!". You literally cannot participate in the core loop of the game efficiently without expanding it, let's not be silly here.
Some people might say "Just run back to town and empty your bags, quit crying," they are missing the point. Forcing a player to interrupt their gameplay every 10 minutes to walk all the way back to a city vault is a deliberate tax on your real-world time. The game is essentially saying: "Pay us premium money, or we will intentionally waste your free time." That is coercion, not an optional feature. But no matter what you say, it will always be the same result with these people, which is "Me like game, you bad person cuz you no like my favorite game". There is no rationality here.
To make matters worse, the UI and baseline systems are a mess. For example, the physical "Grinder" station explicitly instructs you to dismantle unusable gear, yet it completely rejects armor and weapons because the developers didn't exactly make it clear what this thing is talking about. They could easily fix this, and the post lvl 50 content issue, but the devs seem to be spending months prioritizing graphics engine overhauls and large scale PvP castle sieges for zerg clans. Not to mention the devs have a really shady history that leave me feeling a bit weird, do some research on Vawraek Technology Inc. and you will understand. I'm not trying to accuse them of being bad people, but their history is interesting nevertheless.
[h2] Final Thoughts [/h2]
I want to believe in The Quinfall because it has some good bones under its undercooked mess at the end of the day. Perhaps the company behind this game will prove me wrong as time goes on. I will continue to play to see what becomes of it, but I am absolutely not getting my hopes up. I heavily fear it will follow New World down the path of a wasted baseline concept and rapidly die off, but here is to hoping that isn't the case.
