Gray Zone Warfare, a new tactical FPS, launched in early access on Steam yesterday, and so far looks to be a success for developer Madfinger Games. While user reviews are split on its quality, enough players have put money down for the game for it to top Steam’s best-sellers list.
At the time of writing, Gray Zone Warfare is outperforming both Manor Lords (another recent early access title that’s proving incredibly popular) and Total War: Warhammer 3, which dropped a new batch of DLC on April 30, the same day as Gray Zone Warfare‘s launch. The game is even outselling the Steam Deck, which you can see for yourself over on Steam’s website.
It’ll be interesting to see how long Gray Zone Warfare keeps up this momentum given the mixed response from players. A quick glance through some of the more negative user reviews point to a game that simply doesn’t run very well, with poor performance and frequent crashes being common complaints, which has prompted more than a few refunds.
The majority of the reviews, however, are positive, and judging by some of them, Gray Zone Warfare is benefiting from the recent backlash towards Escape from Tarkov. Both games feature similar extraction gameplay, as well as PvE and PvP, but Escape from Tarkov managed to upset its entire community by charging $250 for its PvE mode. This happened less than a week before Gray Zone Warfare‘s launch, so it appears to have scooped up some of Escape from Tarkov‘s disgruntled fans. The user review voted to be the most helpful is even an unsubtle jab at Escape from Tarkov, praising Gray Zone Warfare for not costing $250.
Still, Gray Zone Warfare can’t rely on Escape from Tarkov‘s unpopular business decisions forever. While you should expect it to feel unfinished by virtue of it being early access, Madfinger Games needs to ensure it gets updates out regularly, particularly regarding the performance, if it wants to maintain an audience and attract more players.
