Ambitious survival game on Steam relies entirely on PvP and fails – even the maker thinks it’s bad

Last Oasis has some really good ideas and a unique setting. Only it could never bind players in the long term. Now the inventor speaks up and says: Even he no longer enjoys it. And he wants to change that.

What’s the game? Last Oasis released in April 2020 in Early Access on Steam with a unique approach. The earth has stopped spinning and is being mercilessly burned by the sun.

As a survivor, you are constantly on the run from the sun, fighting your way through the hot deserts and seeking shelter in oases. In a mixture of Wild Wild West and Conan Exiles, you build strange wooden runners that can even accommodate entire cities.

But since water is a scarce commodity, everyone fights for the rare resource. Accordingly, Last Oasis advertised the release with a large focus on PvP. MeinMMO editor and survival expert Benedict Grothaus already thought PvP in Last Oasis was a bad idea. And he was apparently right.

In the attached video you can see the trailer for Season 4 of Last Oasis:

Why did it fail? Apparently not too many players liked the constant struggle for survival. Last Oasis started with over 33,000 players on Steam (via steamcharts.com). It lost 99% of its players just a few weeks after its release.

The biggest problem were nasty PvP players who kept beating up newcomers. More experienced players and large clans have the advantage of experience on their side and newcomers quickly become their victims.

In 2021 there should finally be a reorientation towards PvE. But this hasn’t done much yet. After a brief increase in the number of players, Last Oasis is currently bobbing around at an average of 300 players.

“Last Oasis Sucks”

The maker says: In a new one Post on Steam talks the maker of Last Oasis about the game, the Austrian Florain “chadz” Hofreither. There it says:

Last Oasis sucks. And I should know, I did it. And more than that, I’ve played it – a lot.
When I say it sucks, I mean I don’t enjoy playing it for very long. Not as long as other survival games I like. And with this opinion I am not alone.

Despite several attempts and seasons that have changed a lot, the basic problem has not been solved, namely that he doesn’t like the game. In 2020, Hofreither spoke to MeinMMO in an exclusive interview about the future of Last Oasis.

However, he still doesn’t know how to please the players, especially when he doesn’t know why he’s not having fun. Now, however, he has a solution, as the post continues.

PvP isn’t always bad. Rust frustrates even veterans, but is still one of the most successful survival games:

What’s next? With Season 5, Last Oasis should get another overhaul and focus fully on PvE. Where PvP was always a part of the game before, it should only work with explicit permission, probably similar to Valheim.

Instead, the world should become more dangerous, the PvE “brutal”. Everything should try to kill you and you should constantly have to fight to somehow survive at all. “Taking by the hand” should also disappear, and getting started should apparently become harder.

Since the focus on PvE, the reviews have improved noticeably, the game now stands at 80% positive opinions lately (via Steam). There are critics who miss PvP as a special feature of the game, but the way seems to be the right one.

The Season 5 beta is playable now, at least until July 7th. Apparently, Last Oasis was based on competitors like Conan Exiles or Valheim. Probably a good decision if you look at which games are generally successful on Steam:

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