Beyond the Wall Reviews

[quote][b][url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_flip]Warning: Asset Flip![/url][/b] "Beyond the Wall" is a Digital Homicide style asset flip, or what Valve calls a "Fake Game". The "developer" paid for/pirated a few Unity asset store assets, dumped them all in a blender, and submitted it to Valve as if they're real game developers.[/quote] Two notable criteria for what makes an asset flip instead of legitimate use of stock assets are whether those assets comprise the majority of the game, and whether the "developer" properly credited the people who created most of the assets in the game. This game fails both of those tests. The "developers" here didn't credit any of the artists and real, actual game developers who created the assets here, so this is plagiarism, as well as cash grab shovelware. In this case, the asset flipper took a bunch of Unity Asset Store zombies and other assets and arranged them into a simple, barebones wave survival shooter, with some turrets and other things (perhaps a genuine attempt to make a game, but it's unclear). This is in a shoddy pre-alpha state. It has no value or merit as a real game. "Beyond the Wall" is a badly made game where you're in a single/static arena level, it's a kill all the enemies/wave survival type game with no real plot or anything to do but kill NPCs... this is obviously an incredibly shallow experience. Developers typically only make this type of game because they're lazy or just not interested in adding story/plot/interesting gameplay, or they are just in the business of rushing out a minimum viable product to try gouge some cash from Steam gamers. The game was abandoned roughly 2 months after launch and hasn't been updated in 7 years. It blew past the developers commitment to complete the game without any notification or admission of failure from the developer. The game will never be completed. Taking this shovelware seriously as if it was a genuine attempt to make a game, it doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard. The mismatched game assets are fairly mediocre/low quality, it's a wonder why they couldn't be bothered "borrowing" higher quality assets for this asset flip. This is a lot like going on a shoplifting spree but only stealing the cut price store brand goods. Regardless, the poor quality assets alone should be enough to deter gamers from bothering with this. There's a serious defect in the graphics settings... when I went to change the resolution it dropped me down to 800x600, and the video options in the list didn't even go up to 1080p! I set the game to 1600x1200 (4:3 ratio), but then when I launched into the game after that it reset the resolution anyway. WTF? The game simply won't look right on modern gaming displays due to this failure on the part of the developers. The controls can't be customised, which will be an annoyance for many, but it can also render the game unplayable for differently-abled gamers, left handed gamers or gamers using AZERTY or other international keyboard layouts. These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game. The poor quality of this game is reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the all-time peak player number was only 4 players. This is a remarkably low number, and now, the only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 120 million gamers on Steam and well over 100,000 games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected. This kind of asset flipping isn't harmless. It makes it harder for gamers to find genuinely made games from ethical developers. It makes it harder for genuine indie developers, who put hard work into trying to make real games, to find an audience for their products. It gives indie developers a bad name. So, should you buy this asset flip? Is this better than any of the 100,000+ genuinely made games on Steam? Of course not! "Beyond the Wall" is relatively cheap at $3 USD, but it's not worth it. Given the defects and quality issues with the game, coupled with the unrealistic price, and the questionable ethical nature of the developer and/or their associates (as outlined above), this is impossible to recommend. Remember that if you buy a game from an unethical developer, you're putting your money at risk.