Meet Your Maker has a fascinating concept. Our author explains why the game still failed
What was I looking forward to this shooter last year – and now it’s kind of dead! Meet Your Maker had the potential to create a whole new shooter genre. Just like the developers at Behavior did before with the asymmetrical online horror game Dead by Daylight.
However, just eight months after its release, the game is slowly disappearing into nothingness. The Steam servers are yawning with emptiness, more than 50 players are rarely online at the same time – but why is that? Let’s dive into the story of a game that promised so much and yet delivered so little
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An ingenious concept …
Meet Your Maker presents itself as an innovative mix of creativity and action: Build bases, place guards and set traps to create the deadliest possible labyrinth that the other players have to leave alive. What a great idea
The game seemed to offer a platform for limitless creativity. Each base is unique and reflects the personality and style of its builder. This concept ensured that no two rounds were the same. The variety of traps, guards and deadly tricks allows for an almost infinite number of combinations, which should increase the replay value enormously.
In addition, overcoming enemy bases should not only be a question of skill, but also of strategic thinking. Players should understand their opponents and their construction methods and adapt to them. This would have added a psychological layer to the whole thing that is often missing in traditional shooters.
.. but only on paper
What sounded like a dream to me turned out in practice to be in great need of improvement. While the freedom to build and create bases is impressive, the balance between the roles of builder and attacker is not fully developed.
Players quickly figured out how to exploit the systems, resulting in utter monotony. On the builder side, bases with so-called killboxes quickly became omnipresent. Players simply cram all their resources into a room full of traps and guards. For beginners, these were difficult to crack and extremely frustrating, for pros annoying.
However, overpowered tactics were also quickly discovered on the attacker side: Instead of relying on sophisticated strategies, everyone simply equipped the Arc Barrier. This weapon makes players temporarily invulnerable so they can simply dash through any traps and guards
There is no effective counter to this overpowered weapon. But instead of weakening the overpowered tool, the developers released an update with armor that makes it even better.
A core problem of Meet Your Maker is also the lack of a real challenge. The mechanics that penalize dying in the game are too lenient. Players can repeatedly attempt to overcome a base without suffering any real consequences for their failure. Whether you don’t die once or 50 times ultimately makes little difference.
The design dilemma
Now to the most obvious point of criticism: the design of the characters. Meet Your Maker offers creative freedom in the design of the bases, but the characters through which you experience this world are anything but imaginative
The design of the characters is so generic and soulless that they are barely recognizable. No distinctive facial features, no charismatic characters – just interchangeable armor and masks.
This not only applies to your own alter ego, but also to any NPCs in your base, who are only there to buy upgrades and equipment anyway. Why a lump of meat floating in a giant test tube has to be the most important character in the game – completely incomprehensible to me.
So much missed potential
Meet Your Maker had the potential to define a new genre, much like Dead by Daylight did in the realm of asymmetrical horror games. But surviving long-term in the fast-paced and competitive world of multiplayer games is a difficult undertaking.
An ingenious concept is not enough! I can overlook the lack of depth in the character design and the monotonous environments. But even after the release, the developers have to keep at it to retain players in the long term.
Meet Your Maker failed to evolve dynamically enough to keep up with the ever-changing expectations and play styles of the community. Behavior lacked the ability to translate its vision into an engaging, constantly evolving game experience.
And if eight months after release, the same problems that emerged shortly after release are still prevalent, even the most loyal fans will be lost at some point.
What do you think? Does Meet Your Maker still have a chance of a comeback? How would you breathe new life into the multiplayer shooter? Or has the train long since left the station and Meet Your Maker is a game that has long been forgotten by everyone? Scroll down and share your creative ideas and opinions in the comments!
