**Crossfire: Legion – A Brief Endeavor to Dominate the RTS Scene**
Crossfire: Legion, an ambitious real-time strategy (RTS) title unveiled in 2022, sought to expand the extensive Crossfire universe to audiences in the West. Despite its foundation on a multimillion-dollar franchise, the game struggled to find success and is now poised to vanish permanently. While Crossfire is a familiar title in China and South Korea, recognized as one of the leading free-to-play shooters comparable to Counter-Strike in the West, it remains largely disregarded in other regions.
Smilegate, the studio responsible for Crossfire, has been attempting to break into the Western market. Crossfire: Legion was a key part of this approach, crafted by Blackbird Interactive, a firm with a robust background in the RTS field, featuring veterans from Relic Entertainment known for their contributions to Homeworld. The game was conceived as a spiritual successor to iconic RTS games like Command & Conquer and Starcraft. However, this vision has ultimately collapsed, with the team declaring the cancellation of Crossfire: Homeworld and the imminent removal of Crossfire: Legion from Steam.
**The Conclusion of Crossfire: Legion**
The choice to terminate Crossfire: Legion is hardly shocking, given its abysmal player counts since its early access launch in May 2022. Data from Steamdb shows that the game never crossed the threshold of 400 concurrent players, with numbers dropping to about 30 daily shortly post-release. Even the 1.0 launch provided only a slight increase, with current daily players fluctuating between two and six. On August 18, the game will be taken off the Steam store, as affirmed by a statement from the development team. Existing players will keep their access, but forthcoming updates and support will end, potentially impacting multiplayer features.
The unsuccessful outcome of Crossfire: Legion can be traced to various factors. The RTS genre has faced difficulties in flourishing in recent years, with major publishers like EA and Blizzard distancing themselves from it. Furthermore, the Crossfire universe did not connect with Western players, and the game itself failed to make a mark, perceived as a standard imitation of C&C or Starcraft.
**Crossfire’s Ongoing Challenges**
Crossfire’s efforts to carve out a foothold in the West have been riddled with obstacles. Crossfire: Legion is not the first flawed venture; CrossfireX, a shooter launched for consoles in 2022 with collaboration from Remedy Entertainment, also struggled to gain momentum. It garnered unfavorable reviews, achieving a score of 38 out of 100 on Metacritic, and was dropped by Smilegate a year post-launch.
The Crossfire brand’s last significant appearance in the West was in the anthology series Secret Level on Amazon, which included an episode set within the Crossfire universe. Despite these attempts, Crossfire remains chiefly a Far Eastern phenomenon, battling to garner interest from the Western audience.
In summary, Crossfire: Legion’s saga underscores the difficulties of introducing a well-established Eastern franchise to Western audiences, especially within a waning genre. As the game readies to exit the spotlight, it serves as a reminder of the intricacies associated with cross-cultural gaming initiatives.