{"id":47473,"date":"2025-04-28T12:58:19","date_gmt":"2025-04-28T03:58:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=47473"},"modified":"2025-04-28T13:07:32","modified_gmt":"2025-04-28T04:07:32","slug":"former-fromsoftware-dev-says-his-ambitious-new-action-rpg-bombed-commercially-and-critically","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/former-fromsoftware-dev-says-his-ambitious-new-action-rpg-bombed-commercially-and-critically\/","title":{"rendered":"Former FromSoftware dev says his ambitious new action RPG \u201cbombed\u201d commercially and critically\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Japanese&nbsp;developer Hytacka and publisher Kodansha released the new action RPG <strong>Rise of Rebellion<\/strong> on April 22 on <a href=\"https:\/\/store.steampowered.com\/app\/1795510\/Rise_of_Rebellion\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Steam<\/a>. &nbsp;A week later, Hytacka says that the ambitious game has had a poor launch both in terms of sales and critical reception. While he intends to remain active as a game developer, he suggests that he is likely to lose the support of his publisher for future projects.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" src=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/rise-of-rebellion-20250412-334987-002.webp\" alt=\"Rise of Rebellion\" class=\"wp-image-47477\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/rise-of-rebellion-20250412-334987-002.webp 1200w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/rise-of-rebellion-20250412-334987-002-380x214.webp 380w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/rise-of-rebellion-20250412-334987-002-768x432.webp 768w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Rise of Rebellion is a single-player 3D action RPG focusing on close-range sword combat.&nbsp;Leading up to its launch, the indie project had been on the radar of many soulslike fans due to its combo system, directional parry and dodge systems, powerful enemies, and the fact that it\u2019s being developed by a former Dark Souls 3 developer. However, a week following launch, Rise of Rebellion has a Mixed rating on Steam, with only 40% out of 119 user reviews being positive.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Twin Blade Gameplay<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/indiedev?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#indiedev<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/indiegame?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#indiegame<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/lR8whUkRo4\">pic.twitter.com\/lR8whUkRo4<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Hytacka (@hytacka) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hytacka\/status\/1903793859408396435?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 23, 2025<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>In an <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/4apZlb9L2MI?feature=shared\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">update on his YouTube channel<\/a>, Hytacka reflects on the game\u2019s performance. He doesn\u2019t disclose specific sales figures, but mentions that using commonly cited review-to-sales ratios (for example, \u2018number of reviews x 30 = number of copies sold\u2019)\u00a0should give you a decent estimate of how many copies Rise of Rebellion has sold so far. Based on this, the game likely sold between 3k and 5k copies \u2013 which is indeed low compared to its 40,000+ Wishlists and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=JV0HBjog8vg&amp;t=780s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Hytacka\u2019s target total of 100,000 copies<\/a>. \u201cThe results are not good, or rather \u2013 in terms of what my goal was \u2013 I would say it bombed completely,\u201d Hytacka comments.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rise of Rebellion\u2019s development originally started in 2020, but the project went through a complete overhaul in 2023 in response to criticism from early demo players. Despite rebuilding the game from scratch to improve controls and other issues, it seems Hytacka was unfortunately not able to reach a level of polish that&nbsp;would satisfy&nbsp;his target audience. \u201cLike the reviews say, the quality was disappointing,\u201d he reflects in his video. To be fair, though, while Rise of Rebelion has received some harsh criticism from Steam reviewers, specific aspects of it \u2013 especially the combat \u2013 have been singled out as entertaining and worthwhile, especially given the game\u2019s low price point.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" src=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/rise-of-rebellion-20250412-334987-001.webp\" alt=\"Rise of Rebellion\" class=\"wp-image-47476\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/rise-of-rebellion-20250412-334987-001.webp 1200w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/rise-of-rebellion-20250412-334987-001-380x214.webp 380w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/rise-of-rebellion-20250412-334987-001-768x432.webp 768w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><br>Given Rise of Rebellion\u2019s weak commercial performance so far, Hytacka doesn\u2019t have any big plans for it. Future updates will include only bug fixes and the addition of an (optional) easy mode that does away with directional inputs for parries and slows down the speed of some enemy attack motions.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As for his future as a game developer, Hytacka says he intends to stay active, but that he is likely to lose support from publisher Kodansha, which will significantly slow down the pace he\u2019s able to work at. \u201cHonestly, it&#8217;ll probably be a while before I get to a point where I have something to show.\u201d Hytacka acknowledges that his followers are being \u201cextremely reasonable\u201d for advising him to make a smaller game, but that his next project \u201clikely will not follow that advice\u201d as his ambition is still strong.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rise of Rebellion is available for PC (<a href=\"https:\/\/store.steampowered.com\/app\/1795510\/Rise_of_Rebellion\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Steam<\/a>).&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former FromSoftware developer and Dark Souls 3 designer&#8217;s new independent project Rise of Rebellion has underperformed significantly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":47479,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[64,62,3],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-47473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-development","category-indie-games","category-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - 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